When There Is No More Music to Write, and Other Roman Stories

Baudelaire hat ein Faible dafür, Filme in der dritten Person Singular zu erzählen. In seiner neuesten Arbeit geleitet die Stimme des Avantgardekomponisten Alvin Curran das Publikum durch eine Meditation über Exil, Widerstand und künstlerische Zeitgenossenschaft. Darf man nach den Verheerungen des Weltkriegs überhaupt noch Musik komponieren? Oder sollte sie nicht vielmehr antiautoritär in Realzeit entstehen, gewissermaßen im freien Fall? Die Asynchronität von Bildern und Tönen ist das Kompositionsprinzip dieses Films, der mit Found Footage der Entführung Aldo Moros und einer Dekonstruktion von ZABRISKIE POINT auf seine Thematik einstimmt. (Gerhard Midding)

In Anwesenheit von Eric Baudelaire.

Éric Baudelaire’s latest featurette is comprised of two short films and the longer titular work, a documentary about experimental composer Alvin Curran. It is structured around an extended interview with Curran, in which we learn about his post-Cagean philosophy of collective improvisation, and in particular how he sees it as an aesthetic model for a more just, egalitarian society. In his work with the Rome-based group Musica Elettronica Viva, Curran attempted to do away even with the idea of a discrete work with a starting or stopping point. The two short films preceding WHEN THERE IS NO MORE MUSIC serve as object lessons, clarifying Curran’s ideas about the relationship between aesthetic and political radicalism. FOUR FLAT TIRES is a complex collage of audio and visual material that conveys a humanistic footnote to the Red Brigade’s kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro. In trying to avoid harming a civilian, the terrorists gave themselves a conundrum, one having to do with an intricate mapping of the Roman cityscape. THE LOST SCORE, meanwhile, combines scenes from ZABRISKIE POINT with fragments of music Curran and MEV wrote for the film, a score that was never used. Time and geography again combine to generate a political articulation of abstract space. (Michael Sicinski)

In the presence of Eric Baudelaire.

Éric Baudelaire: L’ANABASE DE MAY ET FUSAKO SHIGENOBU, MASAO ADACHI ET 27 ANNÉES SANS IMAGES (2011), THE UGLY ONE (2013), LETTERS TO MAX (2014), ALSO KNOWN AS JIHADI (2017), UN FILM DRAMATIQUE (2019), UNE FLEUR À LA BOUCHE (2022)