Here at Uninhibited, as always, we been thinking about art, about its power to entertain and to divert, and (after watching Jeff Bridges’ mesmerizing performance in Crazy Heart), about its mysterious power to redeem the weary soul.
But first things first.
Entertainment and Diversion, see: Wicked
Boy oh boy, this was one entertaining show. We schlepped to Sydney to see it, we crammed our tootsies into high heels and downed three glasses of champagne waiting for it to go on, we can’t say much for its quality or possible staying power in the pantheon of creation - but heck was it fun. Two hours of solid gold pap, exploding with pyrotechnical doo dads and covered in a rich sauce of money and green face paint and Bert Newton’s liquor stash (if exploding gold can be covered in sauce, which it can, in this heady mix of metaphors). Rob Mills can’t sing, dance, or act, but what the hey – he wears tight pants and turns into a scarecrow. Uninhibited’s former housemate said it best: An amazing example of what can be done in the theatre with fifteen million dollars.
+++
Last weekend was spent in a shuddering, sobbing mess. Never fear, however – the sobbing was of the glorious, golden variety – the kind of cathartic cleanse one needs every so often, and to which one can always turn to art to provide (fine examples of the type: Les Miserables, Sense and Sensibility, any Bright Eyes song, the episode of Buffy in season 2 where she kills Angel just after he gets his soul back…). The cause? Watching not one, but two heart-breaking films: Pixar’s Up (yes, I know, you’re like – “what? Only just now? That movie came out a bajillion years ago!” Shut up. We’ve been busy) and Scott Cooper’s love-song to country music, Crazy Heart.
Maybe we here at U-bit are overly sensitive to its particular wiles, but country music has always been the music of pain and suffering, of the broken-down and the down-and-out – and, on the flipside, the music of redemption. Bad Blake (Bridges) goes through it all – a working musician with a couple of back-catalogue hit records, Blake is alcoholic, broke, and alone. The music is the cause of his problems, of course – the lifestyle is ruining his health – but more importantly, Blake refuses – out of pride, out of fear, out of bile or sheer bloody mindedness - to allow music back into his life. It’s not that he can’t, just that he won’t, write. And that’s the real killer.
“This ain’t no place for the weary kind,” Blake sings, broken-voiced, towards the end of the film. And of course, he’s right: art, especially music, is a decadent killing field where so many good souls have foundered of their own accord. But there’s a shimmering light on the other side, that dedication and grit helps even the baddest of the Bad to struggle towards – those golden, heart-breaking notes that burst the straining canals of our hearts and open them up to beauty.
Pack up your crazy heart and give it one more try.
