Not the communist party manifesto set to music: A Dollhouse diptych

[hazelk]

I think a Marxist reading of Dollhouse works best and no one plays musical Marx better than Kurt Weill. With or without that Brecht guy. Youkali Tango is intended as a doll’s eye view of the show - an interpretive dance of false consciousness. Mandalay speaks for the clients (and not so much with the dancing).

Title: Youkali Tango
Song writers: Kurt Weill & Roger Fernay
Artists: Jeff Cohen, John Mauceri, RIAS Sinfonietta Berlin & Ute Lemper
Fandom: Dollhouse
Spoilers: S1.1-12
Warning: Scenes from the show
Format: DivX
Size: 42.7 MB

Summary: The sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. The opium of the people.

Download here (Right/control click and save target as)
Stream at BAM here. Embedded below.
Lyrics with translation

Title: The Mandalay Song
Song writers: Kurt Weill & Bertold Brecht
Artists: The American Conservatory Theatre Cast
Fandom: Dollhouse
Spoilers: S1.0-13
Warnings: Sexual assault, institutional rape, violence, exploitation, abuse and bloody revolution
Format: DivX
Size: 34.8 MB

Summary: The universal prostitution of the worker

Download here (Right/control click and save target as)
Stream at BAM here. Embedded below.
Lyrics

Comments

[quinara]

I'm not very good with vids as a medium (in the sense that the language feels very foreign compared to fic), but I wanted to give these a try because Dollhouse pings for me much more as a show for meta than for fic - and I liked them! There is clearly so much more to get out of them than I've managed in two viewings, but in the first I really like the sense of all the personalities forced upon the actives and the influence that spreads into their doll state: the doll state is the finish of a dance rather than a random position. My main reaction to the second is yeah, revolution! They were very cool, anyway.

[hazelk]

Welcome to the dark side! I think vids are more like meta, although some are meta on particular characters and then there's meta on vids. But I've always made up pictures to music the way other people write stories so vidding seemed very natural once I realised it existed.

I think you're right the doll state is ground zero, I hadn't thought of it that way explicitly but the vid went there anyway, which is cool.

[quinara]

Hee! And yes, I'm inclined to think all fic is meta as well, so I don't really know what I was going for there. Vids seem to state their statements a bit more loudly I suppose. (I've only ever had one vid-like idea - well, more like there's an Arctic Monkeys song that is AtS S5 - but I wouldn't have the first clue where to start, so I'm mostly happy with it sitting there.)

[stultiloquentia]

Aiee, Kurt Weill is so perfect for this project! And my god, Ute Lemper is wonderful, isn't she? These are both brilliant. I'm not even sure how you did what you did in the first one, but somehow it perfectly conveys, "This is what it's like to be an active." Just amazing editing and canny clip choices. Reccing forthwith.

[hazelk]

Mmm Ute and thanks for the rec! The "What would it be like to be a doll?" is one of the things that gets under my skin about the series.

[sqbr]

Oh I liked these, though I need to rewatch them to get the full meaning I think. You should post this to femmefanvid

[hazelk]

Will do! Part of the meaning of the second one is I have a bitterly warped sense of humour

[crypto]

These are each really fascinating takes on the show, and complement each other beautifully. Back to back, they're especially devastating. Very cool.

[hazelk]

Thank you!

[promethia_tenk]

I just recently finished watching Dollhouse, found it fascinating (if flawed), and have been scooping up all the vids I can find. Of everything I've seen, these two are by far my favorite, both separately and in juxtaposition. And as as much as a love the dark, dark biting humor of 'Mandalay,' it's 'Youkali' that has me mesmerized--I think that really must be something like the subjective experience of a doll, which is something I find myself continually trying to imagine when I think of this show.

[hazelk]

Thank you! That what is it like to be a doll feels like the heart of why the show was made but almost impossible to express in TV form. It really should have been a novel. Maybe a short story. Something like James Tiptree Jnr's "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"but different.

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

Why haven't I seen this before? What an amazing idea - a dollhouse vid from a doll POV set to a French Weil song - and beautifully executed. I loved the dream-like, disjointed flow of non-narrative that captures the doll experience so perfectly. Normally I'm not a big fan of excessive use of FX, but here they are totally fitting, they perfectly match the FX in the source and are such a great visulal representation of the de/reactivating of the dolls.

I also really like how you used long, slow clips and short fast clips to create an interal, visual rhythm that keeps the viewers intersts right to the end. It complements the music - by the way, inspired choice there!