VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there.
LADY: Can I see it?
VAL: Turn on that light above you. [She switches on green-shaded bulb over counter. VAL holds the guitar tenderly between them as if it were a child; his voice is soft, intimate, tender.] See this name? Leadbelly?
LADY: Leadbelly?
VAL: Greatest man ever lived on the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor with it and won himself a pardon out of jail …
Huddie William Ledbetter was born on this day in 1888, in Louisiana. Some of the details are lost to history, but what is known is that he was already “playing out” at the turn of the 20th century, in and around Shreveport. He was in and out of jail starting in the teens, for owning a gun, for killing a relative. One time, he escaped from a chain gang. While in prison, he continued to sing and make music. John and Alan Lomax (whose names come up again and again in the stories of legendary blues figures in the early years of the 20th century) discovered him in prison in the 1930s. The Lomaxes were determined to capture the sound of these so-called forgotten figures, and they put Leadbelly on tape. They may have been instrumental in getting Leadbelly an early release. Alan Lomax interviewed Leadbelly extensively for his 1936 book Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly . (You’ll see his nickname spelled both ways.) As technology developed, these 19th-century blues singers – if they were still around – found a whole new world opening up to them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Folk music was on the rise. Much of it was watered-down but a lot wasn’t. The past moved into the present. These inspirations along with them, playing folk festivals, making television appearances. (See: Furry Lewis, but there are so many more.) Ledbetter, born on a plantation in 1888, ended up touring Europe. He traveled a long long way.
Due to my Frankenstein-related 2025, my Substack had to take a back seat. It’s 2026 now!
I interviewed Ryan Czerwonko and Hannah Hale about Adult Film’s upcoming production of Cimino’s Defeat – opening tomorrow at Torn Page! It’s about the film director Michael Cimino, both legendary and cautionary tale. I’m seeing it in a couple of weeks but I really wanted to touch base with these artists and see what they were doing with Adult Film, which has grown in leaps and bounds since I first interviewed Ryan in 2023.
We talked about Michael Cimino, of course, but it was a free-wheeling open discussion about 1970s cinema, John Ford, the importance of hope, the state of theatre right now, Rainer Fassbinder, Polly Platt, Tally Brown, John Cassavetes, the gradations of masculinity and femininity and the expression thereof … as well as their plans for Adult Film. I’ve been tangentially “involved” with this group for a couple of years now and have attended some of their events (they also screened my film in one of their short film festivals). I find what they’re doing thrilling. They’re living the dream, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m always interested in hearing from people who are really DOING it.
An American original. Born on this day. A living legend. A national treasure. I have too many favorite Dolly Parton songs to list, and I love her stuff with Porter Wagoner. Speaking of which, have you seen the episode of Drunk History where an adorable wasted man describes Dolly’s break with Porter Wagoner? If you haven’t …
He loves her so much! The slam on the table at the end.
He wouldn’t have killed someone just to save Derwatt Ltd. or even Bernard, Tom supposed. Tom had killed Murchison because Murchison had realized, in the cellar, that he had impersonated Derwatt. Tom had killed Murchison to save himself. And yet, Tom tried to ask himself, had he intended to kill Murchison anyway when they went down to the cellar together? Had he not intended to kill him? Tom simply could not answer that. And did it matter much?
“Tom simply could not answer that.” In this one chilling sentence is the key to Patricia Highsmith’s style. There’s nothing else there except what it expresses. It’s as chilly as Johnny Cash’s unforgettable line: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Unlike Cash’s narrator, Tom Ripley does not kill to see someone die. He kills to survive and keep his true nature concealed. Anyone who is in his way or onto him must go. Tom is almost confused by who he is and why he does what he does. But he’s not worried about it. Above all else, he is logical. The way a lion is logical when it camouflages itself before pouncing on the gazelle.
To this day, people say, “Oh so-and-so’s the new Cary Grant.” Cary Grant was acting in 1930. We’re talking 70 years ago. Almost 80 years ago, and we’re still referring to people as the “new Cary Grant”. Well, guess what, there’s no such thing. If 80 years later, you’re still trying to find someone to be the next so-and-so, there is nobody. It’s only him.
He created the mould for what it means to be a modern male Movie Star. But the mould was so totally in his own shape that nobody else could ever fit into it. They try. And marketing departments try to convince us: “Look. It’s the new Cary Grant.” But it’s the Uncanny Valley. Nobody buys it.
There’s talent, which he had. There’s versatility (ibid.). There’s career and money smarts (ibid. idem.) There’s beauty (ad nauseum, exeunt). He had it all. But what he really had is difficult to talk about or even define: Magic.
All movie stars are not created equal.
Here are some of the things I have written about him over the years:
First up:
1. It was an honor to write the booklet essay for Criterion’s release of Bringing Up Baby. I am particularly fond of the title of the essay: Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls, and Butterflies.
7. For House Next Door:
It all started with a 5 for the Day in 2009.
The rest of the stuff I’ve written on Cary Grant can be found here.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
How could you describe Andy Kaufman (who was born on this day) to a generation who did not grow up seeing him on late-night talk shows, cameos on Saturday Night Live, his own TV specials?
How on earth could you pass on an idea of what it was that he did?
I mean, nobody understood it THEN either.
He was a comedian. Sure. Yeah. But that doesn’t quite cover it, now does it.
“An Elvis movie is always worth watching because of Elvis.” – Kurt Russell
John Carpenter, director:
In dealing with Elvis, I’m bringing a lot of my own feelings to it and how I feel about him, and how I interpret the script, how I interpret his life. And in that sense, from my point, it’s a personal film. I really love Elvis a lot. I’ve always been a fan of his. I love his music. I have a strong feeling for him, it means something to me, I care a lot about the character, I care about his story. And in some senses I feel lucky to be able to direct a film about Elvis, this kind of a film which I don’t feel is exploiting him but I feel is trying to tell his story, trying to tell a story about a man who is bigger than life which is very interesting because he really was a human being, but somewhere in his life I think he transcended that and became mythical.
I am thankful this movie exists. Carpenter’s 1979 film was the first attempt to “deal with” Elvis after his death in 1977. So many horrible details came out following Elvis’ death (as well as right before his death, with the tell-all book by the Betraying Bodyguards) and Carpenter already felt that an Act of Redress was necessary. (Same with Dave Marsh, whose spectacular 1981 book Elvis! served a similar function.)
John Carpenter’s Elvis deals compassionately with Elvis’ rise to the top: it is an act of almost aggressive positivity. This might drive some people crazy but the surrounding context is important.
Kurt Russell, as a child actor, kicked the actual Elvis’ shins in It Happened at the World’s Fair …
Normally I have a hard time watching actors being Elvis (and so Austin Butler has my deepest gratitude), and I can’t stand Elvis impersonators. But Russell captures a flame of the original. Shelley Winters plays Elvis’ beloved Mama, Gladys, a perfect choice.
One of the things I like about the film – making it distinct from much of the commentary on Elvis – is that it doesn’t pathologize Elvis’ relationship with his mother. Yes, they were close. Yes, he was a total and unashamed Mama’s Boy. But … Can’t he have just loved her more than anyone else in the world? Can’t he have just seen her as a focal point of sanity and unconditional love in the middle of a whirlwind? Can’t they have just been so close because poverty and hardship can do that to families, creating a We’re in this together kind of thing?
Things are left out of the film. Mainly: drugs. Elvis was introduced to amphetamines in the Army, in 1958!, so he could stay up all night on his patrols. The addiction worked by stealth (the pills were seen as harmless, and were prescribed by a doctor), and everyone was on speed then. This wasn’t about “getting high” for fun, another important distinction since he never drank, didn’t “party” and hated being around drunkenness. Fun for Elvis involved football, roller coasters, movies and hamburgers. Carpenter made a choice to leave the drugs out. So watching the film can be a weird experience. The film ends not with Elvis’ death, but with Elvis taking the stage, resplendent in a white jumpsuit, for his nerve-wracking live comeback at the International Hotel in 1969. The film ends in triumph.
But again, in the face of all of the revelations about Elvis, and the tell-all books by people who barely knew him, Carpenter – whose comment above is eloquent -shows the Presley mythology (the dead twin, the Mama’s Boy thing, Elvis’ vulnerability – crying from Nashville to Tennessee after the disastrous Grand Ole Opry audition, etc.) in a positive and yet honest way. The film is mainly focused on the unnatural isolation of fame.
Stylistically, Carpenter makes some bold choices. Elvis is often seen through doorways, or at the end of hallways. There, but not really there. He’s surrounded by space, while also being hemmed in. There’s a sense of moody dread in some of the framings – (more typical of, hmmmm, a horror movie, perhaps?) – even though the script pushes towards golden-hued nostalgia and frank myth-making. To the well-known myth, Carpenter adds strangeness. Elvis casts shadows on the wall, his head looming in black silhouette behind him. This is a visual motif throughout, and Carpenter pushes it into a truly poetic realm.
The shadow he casts is much larger than his actual self. The shadow he casts is practically separated from the actual man casting the shadow. Fame is what he wanted, but fame is DARK.
There’s a great scene where Elvis stands in his backyard, surrounded by his entourage. He takes out a cigarette and – as one – they all whip out their lighters. Elvis does not demand that kind of devotion, and Russell plays the moment as one of deep and almost moral and ethical unease, accepting a light from one of them, but showing that in the heart of the character of Elvis, he knows that this is not normal, this is not right, this is not good for him.
It’s a subtle moment and it has the ring of truth.
Thank you, John Carpenter! I know he’s known for other things now, but this is the one I treasure. And remember whose site you are on.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
All of the essays included in the program for the New York Film Circle Critics awards dinner, held a week ago on January 6, are now online. I wrote on the film we voted as the winner of Best Non-Fiction Film, Julia Loktev’s five-and-a-half-hour documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow. Loktev was present, as were Anna Nemzer and Ksenia Mironova – two of the journalists “profiled” in the documentary, now living in exile, having been run out of the county after being labeled “foreign agents” and “undesirables” and “enemies of the people” by Putin. Mikhail Baryshnikov was there – !! – to present the award. The room was FLATTENED by the charimsa of this LEGEND. The legend and dissident. Proud to play a small part in getting out the word on this important film.
, by Patricia Highsmith
