This charming little video has only been on YouTube for a week, though it has been around for a while. It is titled Puce Moment, and is actually a fragment of a larger work called Puce Women, by avant-garde underground film director Kenneth Anger. It seems Anger and myself have something in common other than an interest in occult ritual. We are both enamored of silent-era Hollywood, which is the subject of this film.
The actress in the film is one Yvonne Marquis, who sometime later went to Mexico, where she became the mistress of the then President of that country. As interesting as that is, it is matched by the enigma of the score, recorded in 1966 by an unknown psychedelic folk-rock artist named Jonathan Halper-who following this seems to have vanished completely from the face of the earth. Granted, he has a YouTube site, but I am almost convinced the person who put up the site is not the genuine article. Who is he then? Listen to the two songs on the video, which replaced the original score by Verdi (remember, the film was originally made in 1949).
You have Leaving My Old Life Behind, followed by Yes, I Am A Hermit. I am almost half-way convinced that Jonathan Halper does not exist (despite Anger's cryptic response to a query as to the artist's identity that it was a "friend" who never did anything else).
As crazy as it sounds, I can't help but think this is the Beatles-or at least two of them. The vocals of Leaving My Old Life Behind sounds suspiciously like George Harrison. The vocals of Yes I Am A Hermit sound even more suspiciously like John Lennon. The music of both songs are perfectly reminiscent of the musical period the Beatles were going through at this particular time-the Rubber Soul, and, especially, the Revolver sessions. The lyrics seem to fit as well. All this could be explained as Lennon and Harrison's desire to work on something away from the limelight by which they now felt so constrained. They, and of course Anger, would not have wanted the original film overshadowed by the score, nor would the two pop-stars be particular eager for a public association with the controversial filmmaker.
I know it sounds unlikely, but given everything we know about the Beatles during this period, and Anger himself, it's not out of the realm of probability. An earlier association with Anger, in fact, might well have led to the later pairing of Lennon with another certain avant-garde filmmaker-by the name of Yoko Ono.
At any rate, this is a nice little film to start off the New Year. Something old to ring in the new, you might say.
8 comments:
That video has the Beatles like sound. In addition Kenneth Anger was the toast of the avant-garde at that time. I'm not sure if 2+2 equals 4 yet.
She reminds me a lot of Isabella Rosselini in Blue Velvet. I think David Lynch is a fan of Kenneth Anger too. I think Anger did a film with the Stones too, right?
Rufus-
Yeah, that was Invocation Of My Demon Brother. Jagger did the soundtrack, and there is brief footage of a Stones concert in the film as well, though the actual concert filmed is of course unheard.
Ren-
After I posted this, another thought occurred to me as to why not only would Lennon and Harrison want to do this soundtrack anonymously, they may have had to do so, if they did it at all. Their contract with Capitol Records at the time might have legally precluded them from recording anything outside the Capitol label. By performing under a pseudonym, they were free of this restriction.
Harrison was in a similar situation years later when he appeared on an album he produced by Alvin Lee and Myron (Mylon?) LeFevre. He could list his name as producer, but not as a performer, though he performed on at least one track on the album. He got around that contractual limitation by listing his name in the credits as Harry Georgeson.
The vid certainly has the Beatles sound.
Ren, here's another thing, which might be the most obvious thing of all. It's been forty two years, and this Jonathon Halper, whoever the hell he is/was, has not in all this time so far as I know seen fit to surface to give an accounting of himself. You'd think after all this time he would say something. Failing that, if he died or was killed or something, you'd think something would still have surfaced in the way of information, from Anger or from somebody. It's just too strange.
Anyway, I'm off to find some ice sculptures from the recent Russian festival. So far, no luck. It's hard coming up with interesting things to post. I've got a jim dandy of a post here in a day or two, but I don't want to do two You Tube posts in a while, so I'm kind of stuck here in no man's land for a while.
It isn't The Beatles. From what I've read Mr. Halper virtually fell off the face of the planet because he entered life as a reclusive monk.
Stylistically it bears little resemblance to The Beatles - the guitar is really odd.
That's just the thing, Alex, nobody knows anything at all about him, its entirely conjecture, and whoever he is, he isn't talking, nor is there any record of him anywhere. I just thought it odd when you consider that on top of the fact that in one song he sounds dead on Lennon, but in another one more like Harrison. And yes, the music is very similar to the Beatles at that particular Rubber Soul/ Revolver period, which would be the time they started experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs and the underground art movement, among other things. It wowuld also be at a particular period of time when they would be extremely loathe to a public identification with any aspect of the then very much underground homosexual lifestyle which Anger personified. It would be very much a severe understatement to say there were very few openly gay men at this time. You could count every one of them in the world on one hand, to all intents and purposes, compared to today. They just didn't let it out, and very few people wanted any association with them known. Yet, Lennon in particular was very friendly and respectful of the original Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, one of those very few somewhat openly gay men. He was comfortable with homosexual men privately, but at this particular time would naturally have gone out of his way to not advertise any such association. It would have endangered his career, and the Beatle's status as "sex symbols".
I'm just saying there's a very good possibility not that this is the Beatles performing as a group, just Lennon and Harrison. (No way would McCartney involve himself in anything so provocative). When I first heard the music on the video, I actually thought it was Harrison singing, and started looking on the YouTube page for verification. When I heard what sounded like Lennon singing the second song, I was even more convinced.
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