Live Gigs: ATP 2009 Curated by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Films & Art)

Here’s the third and final blog post after last couple of days! I don’t know if you ever got a chance to go to any of these ATP fest? But NOT only do they have the coolest bands on earth playing live but whoever’s curated gets to picks a whole pile of films too! Here’s what movies played at this fest and I’ve cut and paste the write-ups but I’ve embedded all the trailers. I’m thinking some of us might want some recommend watching in 2020 #StayHome like these:

“ATP Cinema provides the unique opportunity to screen lesser known and hard to come by films, such as Ghosts of The Civil Dead and Pure Shit and also some such as Apocalypto and Walkabout that were made purely for the large screen, and need to be seen in such a way. The selection of films chosen by the Bad Seeds are either personal favourites or feature members of the band in some fashion, through soundtrack or screenplay writing. The aim is to enlighten, entertain or provide the chance to revisit these unique cinematic moments. Ranging thematically from the sacred to the profane, these films continue to inform and entertain us. Made up of a healthy dose of Australian releases, and a nod to some of the great masters of cinema, Kurosawa, Melville, Roeg and Peckinpah – the chance to see some of these on the big screen is reason enough to break open the popcorn.”

Information about the cinema programme:

Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2006, MA15+)

Mel Gibson returns to the director’s chair with this thrilling historical epic. Set in the twilight of Mayan culture young Jaguar Paw is captured and taken to the great Mayan city, where he faces a harrowing end. Driven by the power of his love for his wife and son, he makes an adrenaline-soaked, heart-racing escape to rescue them and ultimately save his way of life. Filled with unrelenting action and stunning cinematography, Apocalypto is an enthralling and unforgettable film experience.

The Boys (Rowan Woods, 1998, MA15+)

Brett Sprague (David Wenham) returns to his mother’s suburban Sydney house after a year in jail. His younger brother Glenn (John Polson) has moved out with his girlfriend Jackie (Jeanette Cronin); youngest brother Stevie (Anthony Hayes) has been staying in Brett’s room with his new girlfriend Nola (Anna Lise) after her father kicked her out for getting pregnant. Arguments and accusations begin as soon as Brett arrives. He accuses both brothers of stealing a stash of drugs he left in his room. The police visit after he fights with Michelle (Toni Collette), his long-time girlfriend; he drives a wedge between Jackie and Glenn and intimidates the terrified Nola. His mother Sandra (Lynette Curran) tries to keep the peace, but the three sons turn on her new boyfriend Abo (Pete Smith). After 18 hours of drinking and fighting, the boys go out and cruise the streets, looking for trouble. They find a girl by herself, waiting for a bus. Aria award winning soundtrack by The Necks.

The English Surgeon (Geoffrey Smith, 2007, M)

What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to the Ukraine. Henry is one of London’s foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he still rides an old pushbike to work and worries himself sick about the damage he can inflict on his patients. “When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people’s thoughts and feelings…and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person’s character ……forever”. Original music by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.

The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah, 1972, M)

Master thief Doc McCoy knows his wife has been in bed with the local political boss in order to spring him from jail. What he can’t know is the sinister succession of double-crosses that will sour the deal once he’s on the outside – and executing the ultimate robbery. Fasten your seat belts and join Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in a supreme action thriller based on Jim Thomson’s novel (Scripted by Warriors director, Walter Hill). Once the Getaway starts, there’s no escaping its breathless intensity!

Ghosts of the Civil Dead (John Hillcoat, 1988, R18+)

Central Industrial is a “New Generation” maximum security prison, surrounded by razor wire and an electrified fence, and situated in the middle of the Australian desert. No-one leaves. At the beginning of the film, it’s locked down – the prisoners confined to their cells – and we flash back to the series of events which led to this. It began with the transference of some more violent criminals into the prison, creating a tense atmosphere that could only get worse. Pleas to the authorities are ignored. Soundtrack by Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld.

The Isle (Ki-duk Kim, 2000, MA15+)

Recalling both the erotic tension and the surrealist imagery of Woman of the Dunes, Kim Ki-duk’s film is set near a remote lake where men come far and wide to fish on anchored rafts. Running a little bait-and-tackle shop is the earthy — almost feral — young lass Hee-jin (Seoh Jung), who sometimes sells herself for a price to horny fishermen. On one raft is the morose youth Hyun-shik (Kim Yu-seok), who Hee-jin has quietly taken a shine to after saving him from a suicide attempt. His ham-fisted advances are rejected, but after a second try at suicide, in which he puts fishing hooks in his mouth, she nurses him back to health. Soon, a freakily-intense relationship builds between the two in which the jealous Hee-jin starts to brutally dispatch with any competition.

Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970, PG)

One of the most famous tearjerkers ever, Love Story tells the tale of Jenny (Ali McGraw), a poor college student from Rhode Island, and Oliver (Ryan O’Neal), a rich law student from Boston, who fall in love while attending college. Despite opposition to their relationship from Oliver’s wealthy father, the two get married. After graduation, Oliver takes a job at a prestigious legal firm in New York, as everything seems to be going well for the couple ; tragedy strikes Jenny, who is diagnosed with a fatal illness. Oliver must face a future without the woman he loves. This timeless film, based on Erich Segal’s best-selling novel, featured the famous tag line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005, MA15+)

Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) captures fugitive Burns brothers Charley (Guy Pearce) and Mikey (Richard Wilson) at the scene of bloody rape and murder. Informing Charley that he must kill his older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), in order to be set free, Stanley drags Mikey to a decrepit jailhouse while he waits for Charley to carry out the deed… Director John Hillcoat’s second collaboration with musician Nick Cave here contributing the film’s screenplay and soundtrack with Warren Ellis is a taut character study of desperation amid the mesmerising backdrop of the 19th century Australian outback.

Pure Shit (Bert Deling, 1975, R18+)

Four young heroin addicts scour the streets of Melbourne in search of some good-quality narcotics – or as they call it, ‘pure shit’. In the space of 48 hours, a friend dies of an overdose, they are ripped off by criminals and arrested and assaulted by police. They bungle a break-in, get chased by hooligans and one is sent to a methadone clinic. The search for drugs veers between farce and tragedy, but it never stops.

Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967, PG)

Alain Delon is the coolest killer to hit the screen, a film noir loner for the modern era, in Jean-Pierre Melville’s austere 1967 French crime classic. Delon’s impassive hit man, Jef Costello, is the ultimate professional in an alienated world of glass and metal. On his latest contract, however, he lets a witness live–a charming jazz pianist, Valerie (Cathy Rosier), who neglects to identify him in the police lineup. When Costello survives an assassination attempt by his employers, he carefully plots his next moves as cops and criminals close in and he prepares for one last job. Melville meticulously details every move by Costello and the police in fascinating wordless sequences, from Costello’s preparations for his first hit to the cops’ exhaustive efforts to tail Jef as he lines up his last; and his measured pace creates an otherworldly ambiance, an uneasy calm on the verge of shattering. Costello remains a cipher, a zen killer whose façade begins to crack as the world seems to be collapsing in on him, exposing the wound-up psyche hidden behind his blank face.

Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950, M)

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, Rashômon is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife. Toshiro Mifune gives another commanding performance in the eloquent masterwork that revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema to the world.

Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971, M)

A boy and girl face the challenge of the world’s last frontier. Dangers they had never known before… A people they had never seen before… Nicolas Roeg’s mystical masterpiece chronicles the physical, spiritual, and emotional journey of a sister and brother abandoned in the harsh Australian outback. Joining an Aboriginal boy on his walkabout – a tribal initiation into manhood – these modern children pass from innocence into experience as they are thrust from the comforts of civilization into the savagery of the natural world…

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If that was just to little stuff too check out in just one weekend? Australia did get it’s first ever Louis Wain exhibition, again cut and paste what I could find about it with a wicked great NC quote right at the end:

A Louis Wain cat painting!

Louis Wain Exhibition ATP Australia 2009

As part of the inaugural All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in Australia curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, ATP and Neon Parc are bringing out an exhibition of one of Nick Cave’s favourite artists, Louis Wain. This is the first time a Louis Wain exhibition will take place outside the UK and Nick Cave has chosen the pieces included in the exhibit personally. The pieces will kindly be on loan from the Chris Beetles Gallery of London, the principal dealer of this celebrated Edwardian artist. The exhibition is made possible with the kind assistance of Dine.

The exhibit will first be shown at a bespoke gallery created at ATP in Mount Buller on January 9th and 10th. It will then travel to Sydney to Cockatoo Island where it will exhibit at ATP on January 17th and January 18th as part of the Sydney festival. Finally, it will return to Victoria to the Neon Parc gallery in Melbourne (1/53 Bourke Street) to exhibit on January 20th – January 31st.

“He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”

HG Wells, 1927

Tony Clark and Anita Lane were into Louis Wain years ago when I was still living in Melbourne and there was this extraordinary book of his pictures floating around and I was really just kind of knocked out by these pictures. Then I went to London and started seeing them in second hand shops, art dealers had them and slowly I started to be able to buy one or two and I amassed a small collection. I have several pictures from various stages of his life – from when he was doing fairly representational pictures of cats – when they hadn’t been humanized to later ones when he was in the asylum – I love them all.

Nick Cave, 2008

Kind-of related: while hacking up and making these/this post/s I found out they’re making a Louis Wain biopic with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead as the catman, could be good? They should really get Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to do the score/soundtrack! Movie making isn’t making at this moment but I do know the movie soundtrack/score Cave and Ellis are hire to do next is called Blonde. Which is yet another movie about Marilyn Monroe, this time by Aussie director Andrew Dominik. He last directed a couple of episodes of the unbelievable wicked great Mindhunter TV series last season last year, two right in middle which was basically the ones meeting Charles Manson and the aftermath. Before that was the Nick Cave’s One More Time with Feeling documentary, his last movies were a couple of Brad Pitt movies Killing Them Softly of 2012 and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford of 2007, his debut feature in 2000 was Chopper starring Eric Bana in the lead. Assassination was also scored by Nick and Warren, even had that cameo by Cave sing that old Jesse James ballad at the end. That’s Dominik full bio anyway Blonde is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name and is starring Ana de Armas as Norma Jeane. Blonde score/soundtrack should have the next release by them but who does know now?

Ticket stubs looked like this!

On a personal note I do really wish I when to one or even both of those festivals and made the trip over east! Should have made the most of something like this because I doubt something like this will ever happen again? At the time in 2009 did see the last night of the tour in Perth which was Mick Harvey very last gig in The Bad Seeds but if I remember right, he didn’t say he was leaving the band until afterwards! I Should blog post all my Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds shows sometime, hey?

Cheers! 🙂

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