More human than human
When a performance brings the dead to life
I think I’ve written about it before, that Tuesday evening in July 2021 when I watched the Anthony Bourdain Roadrunner documentary in a packed San Francisco theater, days before the Covid vaccine propaganda blitz began in eerie earnest. My non-vaccinated ass wasn’t allowed in theaters for the better part of a year, so that was my last experience watching a film with an audience for a while. That alone makes it stand out; in hindsight the memory burns even brighter because it proved such a perfect approximation of the shit-show currently passing as culture.
After taking my seat, for which I’d be asked by a member of a boisterous, late-arriving group if I could, y’know, please move a couple seats over so they could, like, sit together. Like a lazy couple on a flight, God forbid they might have to spend a couple hours seated apart.
Before that, a young woman down to my left had told her friend in the hushed tones redolent of close confidence, “This is going to be really tough. Anthony Bourdain was really important to me.”
That summed up the show for me—a show which left me underwhelmed. The entire undertaking felt like an orgy of self-adulation. The only on-air personality I came away with respect for was Eric Ripert, a fellow chef and friend of Bourdain’s who, when asked to comment upon Bourdain’s death toward the end of the film said, simply, Non.
The irksome feeling went beyond the self-congratulatory nature, though. Documentaries had been ruined, for me, when I watched Asif Kapadia’s Amy six years before in the same theater complex.
Kapadia kept his interview subjects off-screen; we only heard their voices as recorded history flooded before us. This lent a haunting quality to the proceedings, which seemed in keeping with what I construed as Kapadia’s intent: here was a lament for one of the most talented performers of the modern age, and an exhortation to theater-goers to challenge ourselves through difficult questions.
How the early onset of ubiquitous media might have helped bring about Winehouse’s downfall. If we laughed at snide comments made about her, or lapped up shaky papparazi footage of her stumbling about, obviously in pain, were we in any ways responsible?
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It was a slap in the face: to remind both viewer and interview subject alike: this is not about you. Which, in Roadrunner, with all those interview subjects primping themselves on camera, it definitely was. A way to exonerate themselves. OMG David Choe is making a mural to help us process our grief!
Asia Argento came away as the only Bourdain associate with an ounce of integrity through her decision not to participate in the circus. This conveniently allowed all the blame to be piled onto her. But as in any tragedy—perhaps especially suicide—the eternal exhortation of Anaïs Nin reigns supreme: “You cannot save people. You can only love them.”
Love does not include myth-making, participation in the construction of hagiography. That’s propaganda, and should be left to the truly soulless movers and shakers seated atop society. Ignored at all costs as we try to build back better from below.
This is why I have no interest in the new Back to Black film, which opened earlier this month. I’m sure it’s competently made—I’m a fan of Jack O’Connell’s, who plays Winehouse’s on-again, off-again beau Blake Fielder-Civil in it. But I just don’t need to see this. Kapadia’s documentary is sufficient. In many ways, it feels like the definitive statement upon the topic. Maybe we can retire that proverbial jersey and allow her memory a bit of peace.
Here’s where an interesting wrinkle disrupted me, though. I also didn’t need to see Back to Black because this past weekend I watched Olivier Dohan’s Edith Piaf biopic, La Vie en Rose, for the first time in forever. Marion Cotillard imbues such genius into the title role that my faith in film was restored. Here was a definitive take on a topic—and through fiction, of all things! We should all stand ready to allow our minds to be changed in the presence of the worthwhile.
The genius was in showing how delicate “La Môme”, as Piaf came to be known, was as she navigated life off the stage. One of the first things you learn, associating with artists, is that the best understand they are a vessel through which an indomitable, indefatigable spirit courses through. In this spirit is the entirety of human existence.
Call it whatever you want, or better yet, leave it nameless. That way you don’t shortchange its immensity. The importance is in testifying to its existence. You put in the work, devoted to daily grind, so when the spirit calls you are ready to act.
But the toll that can take upon a human being. Like a good gut punch it’ll make you go Oof. Piaf ravaged her body with alcohol and, eventually, morphine. When a doctor in the film asks Cotillard why she must take the morphine, she answers simply, “To quiet my body, quiet my mind.”
This is the through line with Winehouse, what was catalogued so brilliantly, and tragically, in Amy. Chemical dependency would prove her downfall, as well.
Art asks questions of us. In our obsession with celebrity, are we rubbernecking a car crash, unrolling in slow motion, as a jolt of entertainment from our humdrum lives? When tragedy hits, and someone dies, can we allow them to lie in peace without trying to chip off a bit of fame from the glow that surrounded them?
