Mr Zitt will be pleased to know that Bill Viola has DVDs planned in the
near future - now if I can just move into that Philips house with the
plasma-screen walls...
I'd love to see Yuen Kwai's "Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk" done well - i.e.,
readable subtitles; "The Legend" does not cut it. But what I really,
really want is her "Romance of Book and Sword," which is sorta like
Lawrence of Arabia w/ plot by Shakespeare and acting by Hong Kong kung fu
badasses. It's one of the most incredible films I've had the privilege of
seeing, and there were only about 5 other people in the theater.
I wholeheartedly back up the wish for Brakhage stuff on DVD - has anyone on
the list seen his "existence is song"? I haven't, but they sound amazing,
IMAX work - "Some of the huge, densely layered frames look like dried tide
pools or exploding oil slicks."
Finally, I have a broad want: when I see documentaries about musicians,
live footage is inevitably included in little 2-3 minute bites. I'd love
to see entire live concerts from geniuses like Coltrane, Monk, Bo Diddley,
etc w/o having the sublime interrupted so I can hear what an inspiration it
was for Carlos Santana. I saw some lame history-of-rock documentary which
included tremendous live footage of Bo from '64 or '65, absolutely
thunderous & the teenage girls were screaming just as loud as they did for
the Beatles.
Chris Selvig
