by Joyless Staff

One of the most important legacies that David Bowie leaves behind in the wake of his death last week is his key role in catalyzing the potential of music to be not only an aural medium but a visual one. His iconic personae, including Ziggy Stardust, were forged out of both sound and image, through fashion, performance, and a spate of promotional films that presaged the contemporary music video.

It’s fitting, then, that he also penned pop’s greatest ode to watching movies. “Life on Mars?,” the surreal centerpiece of Bowie’s 1972 masterpiece Hunky Dory, expertly captures the sweeping duality of spectatorship, of feeling not only one’s own emotions but also those of the figures on screen. In one brilliant lyric, Bowie’ finds his protagonist—a young girl “hooked to the silver screen”—honing in on this central paradox, as she contemplates whether a film’s characters are as aware that they’re being watched as she is of watching them: “Take a look at the lawman / Beating up the wrong guy / Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know / He’s in the best-selling show.”

The questions raised by the song’s uncanny and cerebral wordplay echo throughout Bowie’s career, which spans not only some of the most vital and revolutionary music of the past 50 years, but the dozens of movies in which he appeared either as an actor or as himself (or somewhere inseparably between the two). Here, the staff of Joyless Creatures pays tribute to this inimitable icon by reflecting on his music, his films, and his influence. (Peter Valelly)

by Joyless Creatures Staff

"What's your favorite scary movie?" a creepy voice asks Drew Barrymore to open Wes Craven's 1996 film, Scream. We at Joyless Creatures decided to ask ourselves the same question. Here follow our Halloween picks – from chilling characters and half-human monsters to legitimate encounters with hell itself, these movies are guaranteed to keep your Halloween spooky and your dreams troubled.

Joyless Creatures is proud to publish entries from Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. The entries were originally published on Rockaliser. 
Stones on Film is a dialogue that focuses on documentary films made about the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band. The full project, written by Nathan Sacks and Aaron Mendelson, is archived here.

Many directors switch styles and thematic interests from film to film, but few are as fascinatingly chameleonic as Alain Resnais. In a career that spanned seven decades—from his initial short documentaries of the 1940s to his final film, Life of Riley (2014), made at the age of 91—Resnais refused to succumb to audience and critical expectations, instead prioritizing ceaseless innovation in narrative, form, and subject matter. An only child born in 1922 in the small Brittany town of Vannes, the asthma-stricken Resnais was home-schooled and quickly developed a voracious appetite for reading, from comic books to the surrealism of André Breton. It was, perhaps, this eclectic self-instruction in the history of literature that instilled in Resnais a love for the unpredictable and polysemous. Though he initially studied acting, Resnais became attracted to film editing in 1943 under the tutelage of Jean Grémillon, though his education was interrupted when he served in the French military during World War II.   

Joyless Creatures is proud to publish entries from Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. The entries were originally published on Rockaliser. 
Stones on Film is a dialogue that focuses on documentary films made about the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band. The full project, written by Nathan Sacks and Aaron Mendelson, is archived here.

Nathan Sacks: After opening credits and a primitive painted interstitial (“stonesrolling”), the film begins with Brian Jones and Mick Jagger on acoustic guitars, humming away at a chord progression that sounds familiar. It is “Sympathy for the Devil,” but in its larval stage. They are sitting in a large recording booth in front of a brightly colored soundbooth, and there is a garish pink rug on the floor. Bill Wyman, revealed to be sitting behind the guitarists, wears a shirt with the same color of pink. Suddenly, Keith Richards cuts in from the left of the frame, muttering some instructions to the group. The music stops, and the camera pans right to Charlie Watts in the corner, bored and noodling at the drums.