Reviews of films, books and CDs that deserve a second look

Film

McCabe and Mrs Miller
Dir: Robert Altman
Warner, 1971
(reissued on DVD, 2002)

This melancholic anti-western was made at the height of what many people consider the last great era in Hollywood, the early 1970s, when the idealism of the '60s had been tempered by reality but moviemakers were still free to ply their craft without excessive studio meddling.

Director Robert Altman, who'd previously lambasted war in M*A*S*H, here tells the tale of a bumbling con-man (Warren Beatty) who drifts into a foggy Pacific Northwest town with a moneymaking scheme that you just know is going to go wrong. His plan is to build a brothel with a bathhouse in the back, and though he manages to enlist the aid of the skeptical town madam (Julie Christie) and accumulate some capital, he soon runs up against The Company, who are buying up the town and use a trio of assassins to enforce their policies.

Like most westerns, the film ends in a shootout; unlike most films, it does not have a happy ending. Altman uses the tricks he was famous for -- conversational (sometimes inaudible) dialogue, moody filtered lighting, haunting songs (by Leonard Cohen) -- to push his meandering movie forward. But though it's a sad movie, it's not depressing or nihilistic. Beatty and Christie were huge stars (and a real-life couple) at the time, but McCabe and Mrs Miller was not a star vehicle; rather it was a collaborative attempt to put a different spin on an American myth. It's worth seeing again, especially on the DVD reissue, where Altman offers grumpy commentary and subtitles help clarify the garbled dialogue.
-- Alastair Sutherland

Jazz

Gainsbourg percussions
Serge Gainsbourg
Philips, 1964
(reissued: Universal International, $ 27.99)

Serge Gainsbourg, the French iconoclast, made le pop franìais cool back in the '60s, and is posthumously doing it again through a new generation of fans. But he wasn't always a pop star; he started his career as a serious jazz composer and performer. And after having built a following based on four albums of music-hall jazz, the Parisian Left Bank hipsters who made up Gainsbourg's coterie took this 1964 "ethno-pop" offering as an act of treason -- rather like when Dylan went electric. And they were right to: Gainsbourg's primary aim was, to borrow from one of his later songs, to take jazz and drive it into a ravine.

Gainsbourg percussions is built around a collection of percussive sounds and backing vocals borrowed from Africa and Latin America, with the distinct feel of travel postcards. It's perhaps one of the first so-called world music records. The opening number, "Joanna," sets the tone with an African djembe intro. Gainsbourg sings, or rather murmurs, over the rhythmscape and the chorus is taken at high-pitch by the backing vocalists. The lyrics are no more the urban wise-guy stories that Gainsbourg had accustomed us to; Joanna is an obese woman as heavy footed in life as she is graceful on the dance floor. Lyrically a tad vulgar, but the rhythms are an in-your-face introduction to Gainsbourg's new style.

1964 was the height of the British Invasion and Gainsbourg was starting to feel that traditional jazz -- and the Left Bank -- had become uncool. Turning from one form of black music to another, Gainsbourg percussions is the instrument by which he'll jump ship to once and for all join the pop world. This album emphasizes composition and rhythm and the pieces are light, catchy and subtly clever. Three songs in the album stand out as excellent. In these, Gainsbourg avoids the musical "tourist traps," using the rhythm section and backing vocals to support and amplify an infectious melody. "New York -- USA," another African-style percussion/choir arrangement, has Gainsbourg listing New York's tallest buildings to a chorus of "Oh, c'est haut" (oh, it's tall), brilliantly suggesting a clash between the city's modernity and the music's primality. "Pauvre Lola" is a loungy piece about a light-headed lady who is featured giggling in the song (not the last of his dabblings with "lady effects"). But the album's best is "Couleur café," another catchy piece of pop about a holiday encounter with a coffee-coloured lady. As always with Gainsbourg's work, before giving it a spin you'd do best to check your political correctness at the door.
-- Vincent del Castillo

Books

The Ginger Man
J P Donleavy
Dell, 1955 (Reissued: Grove Press, $19.50)

Sebastian Dangerfield is not a nice man. Bit of a scoundrel, really. But charming. A man of appetites, you might say. And you'd be right. Sebastian, an American of questionable breeding, attends Trinity College in Dublin in the early 1950s. He aspires to being one of the landed classes -- especially when he's in need of credit, which is always. He's married and treats his wife abominably. And hates himself for it. He's no nicer to his girlfriends but this is Ireland fifty years ago, none of the men are extremely nice to women. So they forgive him for it. Dark as it is funny, the novel lurches from pillar to post with frequent pub stops along the way.

The novel is written in an infectious style that roars along, often using clipped phrases instead of complete sentences. Strict grammarians should avoid it like the plague. That said, the style influenced a generation of writers who emerged in the 60s and there are echoes of it in Canadian writing to this day. As for Mr Donleavy, he went on to write a series of immensely popular books including A Singular Man and The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B. After the mid 60s his work seemed to become a caricature of itself and sales slowed. Born in 1926 in New York, he emigrated to Ireland after the war and is now an Irish citizen.
-- David Elkins