Let's Talk Bodies

Amidst all the Gaga fervor (which I obviously—and wholeheartedly—am helping spur on), other tremendous pop acts have been looked over. One of the greatest things happening in music this year is the release of three mini-albums by Swedish sensation Robyn. The albums, titled Body Talk pts. 1, 2, and 3, are being released every few months, at the rate that Robyn and her producers finish polishing new tracks. Parts 1 and 2 have already been released to much-deserved critical acclaim.

One of the aspects of this project I find particularly interesting is the theme reflected in the title: Body Talk. Despite this phrase, the lyrics of the songs on both albums make relatively few direct references to the body. Robyn’s songs, like so many other songs in the pop genre, are instead mostly about the trials of love/unrequited love and dancing.

Perhaps, though, that’s the key to the title: dancing. Robyn is obsessed with the club and, more importantly, obsessed with what happens in clubs. Namely, socializing. Socializing centered on the dancefloor (song titles include the likes of “Dancing On My Own,” “Dancehall Queen,” and “We Dance to the Beat”). And dancing is nothing else if not communication via the body. The socialization isn’t even really centered on dancing; the dancing is socialization. Dancing is a discourse. Dancing is literally body talk.

Perhaps, then, it makes sense that dance pop is a genre with such a strong female presence. Perhaps it makes sense that dance clubs are a staple of queer culture. Dancing is performative—it is a way to reclaim the body, and not be made a slave of it. French feminist Helene Cixous in her seminal essay (pun intended), “The Laugh of the Medusa” outlines some of the qualities of what would come to be called the “écriture féminine” (women’s writing). Cixous places a great deal of emphasis on the body and observes that a woman speaking publically, “doesn’t ‘speak’, she throws her trembling body forward. . . it's with her body that she vitally supports the ‘logic’ of her speech. Her flesh speaks true. . .she physically materializes what she's thinking; she signifies it with her body.” Perhaps, then, dancing is a permutation of the écriture féminine. It’s certainly freeing for many of these great pop artists: “Now what? 'ya jaw has dropped / Until the music stop / you know I still run this thing like a dancehall queen / I really don't want no hassle” Robyn boasts on “Dancehall Queen,” while on “None of Dem” she feels she wants to escape a town where “none of these beats ever break the law”—finding music worth dancing to is literally a matter of liberation.

The world of pop, in general, seems a place where feminist and queer expression can be very at home, as its equal emphasis on theatricality, music, fashion, dance, and performance make it a complex discourse that might be capable of thwarting certain aspects of patriarchal communication. Of course, major labels can corrupt all this, sometimes turning singers into public sex-slaves. But the savviest of the pop-icons brand themselves, literally turn themselves into cultural movements (think Gwen Stefani and her world of LAMB, or Gaga and her tight-knit community of Monsters), thereby wresting control from the system and speaking to us in new ways. They’re making the beats and dancing to them, they’re making the clothes and wearing them, and they’re staging the performances and putting them on.

“When the beat comes on, the girls all line up / And the boys all look, but no, they can't touch” Gwen Stefani sings in her now several-year-old hit single, “Wind It Up.” It’s a clear pronouncement of body ownership and a clever summation of certain third-wave feminist views. “I know he thinks you're fine and stuff / But does he know how to wind you up?” If he doesn’t, Gwen and the girls probably do, because they’re speaking an entirely different language.

The Old Soul of Lovely, Still: Nik Fackler

Age, time and memory are very much the looming concerns of Nik Fackler and his first film Lovely, Still. This independent gem was distributed in only fifty theaters in the U.S. and tells the story of Robert Malone (Martin Landau), a lonely old man who meets a woman named Mary (Ellen Burstyn). He soon finds himself caught up in a grand love story at an unlikely point in his life. Within the first few minutes of the film, the charming winter wonderland of Nebraska Christmas hugs and slowly pulls you into a warm holiday romance. By standard analysis, Lovely, Still arguably suffers from having no antagonist. This is easy to ignore thirty minutes into the film when the audience is completely immersed in the romance and the gripping performances of Burstyn and Landau. However, the film does fall into some of the same directorial debut problems as (500) Days of Summer, namely moments of overly flashy style as well as a kind of kitchen-sink psychological and generic approach. Nevertheless, it’s always heartening to see a young filmmaker with such passion and belief in the ways the craft can make people feel and think.

Nicole Elliot, Nik Fackler at Laemmle Music Box

Nik Fackler is as humble and charming as his first film, but more importantly, he maintains a child like sense of wonderment reminiscent of a small boy wearing his father's oversized tweed jacket. The biggest question for this incredibly young director is how he was able to get recognition at all. “It was sort of conditional, I mean for a long time no one would even read the script. I was really young. From seventeen to twenty, no one would even read it: agents, actors, anyone, so I finally stopped posting my age, and started hiding my age and then it was just getting the script to Martin’s agent and I think something we had on our side was that Martin didn’t get a lot of scripts where he was the leading man in this grand love story. So it kind of had the advantage to maybe have him pay attention to it. So he read it and then I get a call on the phone when I was like 22 or so, and they’re like we’re flying you to Los Angeles to meet Martin Landau, so get ready.  So I flew out there and was like, ok, I can’t mess this up. So I met him and we began to chat and we became friends and collaborated and he sent it to Ellen and then we started making the movie.”

If Lovely, Still is any indication of future projects, we can expect something akin to an already fine wine growing even more satisfying with a little more age. Perhaps the cork on Lovely, Still was popped too soon.

After the credits rolled at Laemmle Theatre on September 18th, a young Fackler, decked out in geek-chic threads with fashionably clashing patterns, strolled out to a modest audience, happy as a kid on a snow day. He generously offered himself to a gathering of senior citizen piranhas who perhaps wouldn't have bitten so quickly had he looked older.

There are two things working for Fackler besides the obvious talent and oozing creativity. One is luck. The other is memory, not to be mistaken for grand wisdom because of the aged characters. Fackler and his film exude nostalgia and longing for youthful warmth, tucked away deep in our minds and surrounded by the cold truths that layer and harden us over the years. “I don’t know, I was just kind of writing from the heart, I was just trying to be really honest about what I was going through and not try to be age specific about it.  I found through existence that we all have a lot in common in our feelings and emotions. I was waiting tables at my parent’s diner in Omaha and I met this old man who had been alone all his life; he had never been married or even had a girlfriend and I’m like, wow, this guy just hasn’t had these feelings that I’m feeling and I was captivated by this man and that was sort of the genesis of the story.”

Fackler proved that young Hollywood could artistically succeed without following trending topics. We need independent voices that make us feel something human. Fackler has added another work that helps restore how viscerally, passionately and nervously whole the celluloid strip can make us feel. May Lovely, Still be his northern star.