Vid rec: Charles Gunn meet Joe Gillis
Jul. 11th, 2006 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelk![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
butterfly’s new Gunn vid set to ‘Sunset Boulevard’ from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical sung by John Barrowman is a remarkable character study that weaves elements from the show, the movie and the series to make one exhilarating whole.Download link
‘Sunset Boulevard’ film or musical, behind Norma Desmond’s fading histrionics it’s all a dead guy’s story. Joe Gillis makes a Faustian bargain. Enter Charles Gunn.
It’s a show tune and the vid opens with the credits seeming to rise like the red curtain from the proscenium arch as the camera pans back but as things move into close up the dark and dirty LA street scene recalls the opening of the movie. Angel is a wonderful show for camerawork and the vid makes full use of this to track the alternating soaring and jittery tendencies in the music. Best though is the narrative structure, which echoes the movie’s use of foreshadowing and constant recursion. Joe Gillis sells his soul three times and ends having betrayed Norma, Betty, the girl he might have loved, and himself. Gunn is a more heroic character but the vid starts with his blood on the dotted line, and the romance with Fred is intercut with it being sucked into the void that swallowed her professor. Then Wolfson and Hart, bringing comfortable quarters with hidden dragons in the white room. An execution and Gunn’s attack on Knox blends into Fred’s fallen body. Still one betrayal to go. In the first verse the vid seems to show Alanna’s kidnapping as just part and parcel of the life her brother is trying to escape but it saves the worst till last and ends intercutting her dusting with the blood on his hands as he goes into the ocean drenched final battle.
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Date: 2006-07-11 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 02:45 am (UTC)Rec'd it on my LJ, for those not on your flist..
I'm unfamiliar with the Sunset Boulevard musical, so thanks for your explanation and commentary!
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Date: 2006-07-12 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 08:03 pm (UTC)The more time goes by the more I appreciate how wonderfully done these shows were. And yes, there was something particularly stylish about Angel.
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Date: 2006-07-13 10:01 pm (UTC)Speaking of vidding could I ask you a big favour? Would you be prepared to do a beta on a Willow vid I've been working on? It's a look at Willow and magic and the scoobies and Tara to the Lou Reed song Perfect Day. "You're going to reap just what you sow," or what the real price for bringing Buffy back became. I mean I'd very much appreciate your opinion on it but it really would be a big favour and obviously I'd quite understand if you were busy or it doesn't sound your kind of thing. :-)
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Date: 2006-07-13 10:45 pm (UTC)I will say though that that song choice sounds terrific. I'm actually more familiar with the Duran Duran cover which I like better as it has a more dreamy mellow tone to it, but that's just personal taste.
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Date: 2006-07-14 07:12 am (UTC)I'm not quite finished with the first draft and the family descend next week so after writercon (panel envy) would be perfect. Viewer's reaction is exactly what it needs, I've a terrible habit of trying to say too much too telegraphically and ending up with chunks of stuff that would need pages of footnotes to make sense to anyone not me.
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Date: 2006-07-14 10:56 pm (UTC)