The infamous 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner developed the idea of the gesamtkunstwerk (commonly translated as ""total work of art""), a multimedia form of artistic production that, he argued, was more effective and affecting than any of the arts on their own. For Wagner, it wasn't enough for the arts to be siblings: They had to become full-blown kissing-cousins. Of all the venues I've been to in my four years as a Madisonian, it's the Project Lodge that most reminds me of Wagner's incestuous conception of art.
This past Saturday night, the Lodge was the site for a screening of a new documentary about the band of Montreal entitled ""of Montreal: Family Nouveau."" It was the film's second public screening ever, having premiered less than two weeks ago at the Chicago International Movie and Music Festival.
The screening was preceded by musical hors d'oeuvres from two local bands, All Tiny Creatures and Jivas. The Lodge's walls feature a wealth of eye-catching abstract paintings, making for some supremely stimulating side dishes.
Present at the screening was the film's maker, Spenser Simrill, an English professor from the University of Georgia-Athens. Following the band for 11 days on their 2009 European tour, the documentary offers glimpses of Glasgow, Amsterdam, Paris and, most significantly, the landscape of the human body.
Of Montreal's stage show is almost a gesamtkunstwerk in and of itself: a throbbing frenzy of pink and black, muscular male torsos, animal masks and simulated domestic quarrels, this carnival-like spectacle recalls Jack Smith's paradigm-shifting 1963 underground film ""Flaming Creatures."" Lead singer Kevin Barnes, whose points of reference include the influential surrealist Georges Bataille and Greek mythology, oozes the sort of transgressive charisma that rocketed performers like Smith's hermaphroditic ""Creatures"" and Andy Warhol's Factory Superstars to the upper tiers of cult fame. Barnes is at once macho and fey, an ambiguous figure who seems to occupy a sexual space outside of gender. The triumph of ""Family Nouveau"" is how well it captures the practical nitty-gritty of being so darn eccentric.
Indeed, the shadowy backstage scenes, full of non sequitur conversations and pushup contests, would seem right at home in Warhol's 1966 split-screen epic ""Chelsea Girls."" Much of the aesthetic force of of Montreal's stage show is a function of their screwy, slutty charisma; I wouldn't have been surprised if Candy Darling stumbled onstage and fell at Barnes' feet, desperately strung-out and hopelessly in love. The sexual indeterminacy of Warhol's drag queens suggested serious tensions within the patriarchal family; it's no coincidence that jokes about child-eating and masturbating while thinking of one's parents are among ""Family Nouveau's"" most memorable moments.
Simrill shot ""Family Nouveau"" with the affordable and portable Canon HV30, an HD camcorder he prefers for its inconspicuousness and the fact that it lends itself especially well to shooting with a wide-angle lens. During the Q&A after the screening, Simrill expressed admiration for the ""fly on the wall"" style of documentary filmmaking exemplified by the Maysles brothers. Simrill spoke of his own approach as being a ""dance"" of concealment and revelation, a gaze that desires to co-exist with rather than coerce its object. For Simrill, the point is to try to use the camera to bear witness without intervening, a noble yet impossible goal. The resulting 45-minute film—distilled from 50 hours of footage—is a portrait of the artists as half-naked adults.
Much like a backstage musical, ""of Montreal: Family Nouveau"" is primarily concerned with the logistics of putting on a show; if that show happens to be a sensory orgy, so be it.
