FOT-Think, 1.0 - A Barcelona Holocaust, by Egon Schiele

[Matthew_S]

I'm interested in seeing where this thread goes...

What do FOTs think/know about:

1) "Holocaust" by Big Star

2) the movie Barcelona written/directed by Whit Stillman

and/of

3) the art of Egon Schiele?

I'm curious about opinions, but also stories or (semi-)related anecdotes. 

For example, I was first exposed to the 3 original Big Star albums around the time of the ryko Third CD (1992).  The album proper (before that release's bonus tracks) in their track listing ends with Take Care.  I remember reading at the time that some previous bootleg version or other (from Germany??) ended with Holocaust, a very different finale for the listener.  The song is bleak, at best, and its impact upon the album as a whole is that much greater as the last song.  Even buried in the middle, its starkness stands out but still...


With respect to Egon Schiele, I was completely unaware of his work until that Rachel's album about his life...

I think Barcelona  is a vastly underrated and underappreciated film.

[buffcoat]

I like Barcelona a lot.  But I like Whit Stillman's films a lot, the first two anyway.  I need to go back and rewatch the third one.

The interplay between Fred and Charlie is fun.  I always wanted to believe he overstated the contempt of the Spanish for Americans but am afraid he didn't.

[mokin]

I love Chris Eigeman, even if he's one of those actors who plays the same character every time. Kicking and Screaming is probably my favorite, but Barcelona isn't bad.

For some reason the theory/problem his character has about shaving commercials sticks with me.

[yesno]

1) "Holocaust" by Big Star

I like it!  Even though the first version I heard was by This Mortal Coil.

[Laurie]

I love Egon Schiele. This is my desktop. I made the damn thing myself.

[Dan B]

I just bought Big Star's 3rd on vinyl with the original tracklisting.  It sounds good, but the Ryko track listing is better.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

I just bought Big Star's 3rd on vinyl with the original tracklisting.  It sounds good, but the Ryko track listing is better.

same here.

[Matthew_S]

I just bought Big Star's 3rd on vinyl with the original tracklisting.  It sounds good, but the Ryko track listing is better.

same here.

Who released it?

What is the deal with the tracklisting anyway?

according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third/Sister_Lovers

the Ryko version is the order Alex Chilton actually wanted. 

[iAmBaronVonTito]

I just bought Big Star's 3rd on vinyl with the original tracklisting.  It sounds good, but the Ryko track listing is better.

same here.

Who released it?

What is the deal with the tracklisting anyway?

according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third/Sister_Lovers

the Ryko version is the order Alex Chilton actually wanted. 

the one i bought (via goner) is from the label 4 men with beards and supposedly has the original track listing, on 180 gram vinyl. 

ive been listening to it while i read and its been raining lately.  very romantic.

[Stupornaut]

I also prefer the Ryko tracklisting, but that cover is pure corn. I wish they'd kept the one from the '78 issue.

[Matthew_S]

I like Barcelona a lot.  But I like Whit Stillman's films a lot, the first two anyway.  I need to go back and rewatch the third one.

The interplay between Fred and Charlie is fun.  I always wanted to believe he overstated the contempt of the Spanish for Americans but am afraid he didn't.

The Last Days of Disco, the third one, gets a bad rap (wrap? rep?) perhaps in large part due to Chloe Sevigny's lead.  I've always liked her (and I think her performance on Big Love makes crystal clear she has acting talent) and that never bothered me.  It feels slightly than the previous two, or less perfectly written/done.  Maybe it is a tad too much -- you had to be there in the disco era.   I don't know and I need to rewatch it as well.  In any event, the movie does provide this  (and many other) wonderful dialogue:

Josh Neff: [referring to Lady and the Tramp] There is something depressing about it, and it's not really about dogs. Except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types, which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond Cocker Spaniel with absolutely nothing on her brain. She's great-looking, but - let's be honest - incredibly insipid. Tramp, the love interest, is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind - an oily jailbird out for a piece of tail, or... whatever he can get.
Charlotte Pingress: Oh, come on.
Josh Neff: No, he's a self-confessed chicken thief, and all-around sleazeball. What's the function of a film of this kind? Essentially as a primer on love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches the idea that smooth-talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls from sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house, their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.

All 3 movies are full of great lines.  I wholly agree that the interplay of Fred and Charlie is wonderful.  Plus, Barcelona offers pre-Oscar Mira Sorvino doing a Spanish accent.

It has now been ten full years without a new movie from Stillman; that's really too bad.  I see imdb says he is directed the adaptation of Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men.  Anyone know anything about that?  Have you read the book?

1) "Holocaust" by Big Star

I like it!  Even though the first version I heard was by This Mortal Coil.

I'm not even sure what I mean by this exactly, but Holocaust is the type of song I would have thought would be uncoverable (or not able to make a good cover of).  This Mortal Coil - at least it suits their general tempo and mood...

I love Egon Schiele. This is my desktop. I made the damn thing myself.

Egon Schiele is wonderful.  His work is often quite raw and sexual; no matter the context or content, it is always revealing.

[John Junk 2.0]

Evan "Funk" Davies once gave me a mix CD and it had demo versions of "September Girls" and "Back of a Car" on it and I was like "This band is awesome!"  This was back in the days of Napster, and the only Big Star mp3 I could get was "Holocaust" and I was like "What the fuck is this darkness??  Is this even the same band?  No, this is some creep in his basement trying to get more exposure by pretending he's Big Star" and I only listened to it like twice. 

I love Barcelona.  I saw this in college and recently re-watched it and I still like it.  I like the over-written style and wooden acting of Whit Stillman movies, and I'm not sure why.  There are a couple of great lines in that film.  My favorite is something like :

"Everyone's always talking about the subtext.  What's the subtext?  What's underneath what they're saying?  But no one wants to talk about what's right there, what they're actually saying.  What's above the subtext?"

"That's the text."

"No one ever wants to talk about that!"

I'm not sure what the real quote is, but that's the gyst. 

I like Egon Schiele alright.  It's kind of funny that the Rachels did sort of help cement his tweemo cult hero status.  He's really good at drawing vaginas.  It's kind of funny though, because his people are so emaciated.  His stuff is erotic but I'm not sure if it would have the draw it has if we didn't have this whole supermodel waif thing going in contemporary culture.  Which came first, the Schiele or the heroin chic?  (I guess technically speaking the answer is obvious).

[Days of Se7en]

I love Chris Eigeman, even if he's one of those actors who plays the same character every time. Kicking and Screaming is probably my favorite, but Barcelona isn't bad.

I'll second that, with the gloss that "Kicking and Screaming" was a Noah Baumbach film, not a Whit Stillman.

I think Stillman's (and Eigeman's) best is definitely "Metropolitan" though.

Stillman is one of the great "what the fuck happened to that guy?" mysteries since he hasn't made a movie since about 1998 and seems to have dropped off the map.

[Days of Se7en]

Also: I prefer "Kangaroo" to "Holocaust."  Beck's version of that is pretty good too

[mokin]

I love Chris Eigeman, even if he's one of those actors who plays the same character every time. Kicking and Screaming is probably my favorite, but Barcelona isn't bad.

I'll second that, with the gloss that "Kicking and Screaming" was a Noah Baumbach film, not a Whit Stillman.

Yeah, I wasn't clear in my original post, but I understand it was a Baumbach film. I was just saying his character is pretty much the same across all movies and filmmakers.