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Passion Takes Its' Toll

Today’s post is going to be a tour-de-esoterica, covering International Cinema, Techno Groves, a few meaningful song lyrics and perhaps a little philosophy.

At the centre of this romp is Ukraine-born model/singer/songwriter/actress Milla Jovovich (It may be technically correct to call Milla Russian-born, as the Ukraine didn’t become independent from the USSR until 1991, well after her birth). Actually, we’re going to focus on Milla’s acting and music bits, as her career in both are more than enough to snowball this post to epic proportions.

The first time I ever came across Milla Jovovich it was on Much Music and she was just “Milla”, who I momentarily confused in the wife of ex-Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, when she was announced as an upcoming live interview. I didn’t really pay much attention to the interview, but I did enjoy the music video for the song “The Gentleman Who Fell”, which has very interesting lyrics, such as this passage:

“I feel your closeness
like a shotgun
a chill within my soul
I touch your finger
know your darkness
your passion takes its' toll”

As a person both cursed and blessed with creative passive I often ruminate on “your passion takes its’ toll”, as I think this is very true for a lot of creative people.

and:

“I don't know how to speak to you
I don't know how to trust you
I don't know how to live for you
I don't know how to love you
the gentleman who fell before the court”

Which is certainly a sentiment that is very close to my heart (see ruminations on quotes from Million Dollar Hotel below for a further example).

It wasn’t until a few years later, when I first got access to the Internet, that I was able to learn more about Milla. The Gentleman Who Fell is from a CD called “The Divine Comedy”, which is unexpectedly enjoyable CD (having been created by a model/actress and all), in fact I can’t think of a bad track on the entire CD! (Add this one to my Desert Island Discs collection!) I would say that the music is somewhat comparable to another of my favorite female singers, “Dido”, if with something of a different "polish".

There is a second Milla CD called “New Electronic Folk Music: The Peopletree Sessions”, but this seems to be a very controversial release, the sound is a bit more like “Portishead” and I can’t say that I really like this CD as much The Divine Comedy.

Now, somewhere along the line I caught my first glimpse of Milla as an actress in a one of my all time favorite movies, Richard Linklater's “Dazed & Confused - Criterion Collection”.

I’m not sure what’s so charming about Dazed and Confused, it could be the actors, CSI: Miami fans take note of a much different Rory Cochrane (That Martha Washington, man... She was a hip, a hip, hip lady) and Matthew McConaughey gives a notable performance (Just Keep Livin'!)

Or it could be the music, you got Alice Cooper: “…School’s out forever, School's been blown to pieces…” – (Thank goodness there was a time when this was still politically correct), Black Oak Arkansas: “…the excitement of the Devil as we talked …” (Great song about Karma and living in balance between so-called “good” and “evil”), The Edgar Winter Group: “…So, come on and take a free ride, Come on and take it by my side…” (Excellent roadtripping tune!), ZZ Top: “I said, lord, take me downtown, I’m just lookin’ for some tush.” (I’m not even going to comment) and more!

Or just the endearing characters, like Milla, whose Michelle character doesn’t say a single word in the whole movie, but still has a fascinating presence. Watch for the scene were she’s completely baked and is trying to light a cigarette. (LOL)

Now, before I forget, other notable films by Richard Linklater are:

“Before Sunrise”, a dialog-based romantic story (Richard Linklater is known for his dialog) and “Before Sunset”, which picks up on the same characters 10 years after their original meeting. The fascinating thing is that Before Sunrise was actually made with the same actors a full 10 years after the original Before Sunset, an interesting concept, if nothing else.

“Waking Life”, a fully animated movie created via a process called “rotoscoping”, where animation is drawn frame-by-frame over the original film (This is the technique that George Lucas employed for the lightsaber blades in the original Star Wars trilogy). The unique visual style of Waking Life is nothing compared to the fascinating subject matter, making this probably the only “mainstream” movie to ever focus entirely on the philosophy of dreaming in general and lucid dreaming in particular.

“A Scanner Darkly”, probably the movie that I was most excited about in the last year, being a huge fan of Philip K. Dick (I wonder if the PKD android is still AWOL?). But still haven’t managed to see in whole as it didn’t actually seem to play in any theatres! (at least not locally! Heck at least the Roger Altman movie version of A Prairie Home Companion had one showing in Sudbury!)

“Blade Runner”, (Not a Linklater film, but worth noting as a tangent) based on PKD’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is probably the best of all the PKD movies, thanks to Ridley Scott’s excellent filmmaking. Blade Runner also has one of the best early techno soundtracks by electronic music pioneer, “Vangelis”.

Anyhow, back to Milla! Who probably gained the most attention from he role in “The Fifth Element” (Leeloo Dallas mul-ti-pass) by French film maker “Luc Besson”, who she was married to for a short time. Luc went on to cast her in “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc”, which wasn’t nearly as accessible as The Fifth Element (I suspect this is because not many people recognize The Messenger for the true black comedy that it is). While we’re on the topic of excellent techno soundtracks, Eric Serra did a faboo job with the soundtrack for The Fifth Element, well worth checking out!

Milla’s next movie, where she contributes both as an actor and musically, is a bit of a hidden gem that I would have never found out about if I hadn’t been searching for information on her various musical pursuits. It’s called “The Million Dollar Hotel” by German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who I knew from another one of my favorite movies, the very quirky “Until the End of the World”, starring the charming French actress Solveig Dommartin (I will warn you that I may just be the only person on the planet that actually likes Until the End of the World, everyone I show my old beat up VHS tape to always ends up giving me very strange looks post viewing).

The Million Dollar Hotel is pretty quirky as well, but it has two quotes that I hold close to my heart (forgive me if these quotes aren’t perfect, as they’re both from memory): “If he wants to fuck around, he’s going to have to pay, just like everyone else” and “You can’t love somebody who places no value upon themselves”.

The first I took literally to mean that there’s no such thing as a free ride when it comes to coitus for a man. We either have to seek out a professional for hire, or put out financially to enjoy the company of a girlfriend and even more for to have and keep a wife. Please don’t think that I am complaining about this aspect of our society, I just find it a fascinating truism, as it really is manifestation of mainstream society. This of course generates an interesting counter culture, such as the bogus media legend of “Toothing” or couples that engage in what is internally referred to as “The Lifestyle” (Please note that the only reason I know either of these terms is from watching way too many CSI and CSI: Miami reruns).

I had to ruminate about the second quote for a while before I realized that I had experienced the exact phenomenon of trying to love a person who placed no value upon themselves, and ya, such relationships are doomed to failure right from the start.

Here are a few more quotes from the movie, just in case I have scared you off with too much seriousness:

“No matter how strange or despicable you act, I can do one better, because I work for the government!”

“Well, it's all about believing, and if we believe in something, then that's real, isn't it? And if enough people believe in the same thing, then... that's reality.”

“…Because the line between art and garbage can be thin… …Sometimes even artists cannot see it…”

Wim Wenders seems to enjoy a special love of music, the soundtrack of Million Dollar Hotel is composed of a various artists (including Milla, which is how I found the movie in the first place and Daniel Lanois, yay Canada!) Of course, readers with a keen knowledge of music trivia will know that Daniel Lanois produced U2’s infamous album “The Joshua Tree”, so it’s not surprising to find that this entire soundtrack was created as in collaboration with U2’s Bono.

The soundtrack for Until the End of the World more diverse equally, including, but not limited to Talking Heads, Julee Cruise, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Jane Siberry (that reminds me a of a great “6 Degrees” post that I have to do!) and Lou Reed.

Lou Reed, who got his start with the Velvet Underground (it’s hard to think of a more important influence for punk, alternative and techno music) is of particular interest and loops back to Milla, as she covers one of his songs for Million Dollar Hotel.

As another unusual connection to the Velvet Underground, one has to wonder if the name of the band that Milla created at the end of the 90’s, “Plastic Has Memory”, was at all influenced by the VU/Andy Warhol era travelling show “Exploding. Plastic. Inevitable.”?

Back to Wim Winders, who is also responsible for the delightful and award winning PBS documentary, “Buena Vista Social Club”, where another excellent and esoteric musician, Ry Cooder, travels to Cuba to resurrect a forgotten age of music and performance.

I don’t think that there’s much more worth mentioning in Milla’s acting career. I must admit that I have never watched the Resident Evil movies (I have always enjoyed bad horror movies, but Audrey is scared of such things, so I rarely have the opportunity to watch them any more) . And I can’t bring myself to even talk about how awful “Ultraviolet” was! I mean, Milla was looking as good as ever, but come on! Style only goes so far before you need some kind of story! All I can suggest is that Milla stays as far away from Ultraviolet director Kurt Wimmer (No wonder he doesn't have a headshot on the imdb, I would be too ashamed to show my face as well) and sticks close to her fiancé, English-born horror-action director Paul W.S. Anderson, who at least has enough experience to produce half-decent horror/action/sci-fi schlock!

Alas, I think that my ability to create esoteric links has been exhausted for the time being. I will leave with the final note that if you enjoy Milla’s music, especially The Divine Comedy, then its well worth perusing the Music section of her official website, as there’s practically a CD’s worth of free demo songs available for download!

Paradox bless ye, Ms. Jovovich!

P.S. Ok, I was able to dig up one last esoteric connection for this post. While researching artist links I read through some Q&A journal questions on Dido’s website and came across a post where she mentions driving down the pacific coast highway to Joshua Tree National Park at 3 in the morning in order to relax (I always knew that Dido was my kinda lady!)

Posted by Dylon on November 11, 2006 1:37 PM | Permalink

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