Le New York Times, Friday, June 17, 2011 - Rachel Saltz
«The Colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time»
Opens on Friday in Manhattan;
Directed by Jacqueline Caux
1 hour 36 minutes.
How’s this for pedagogy ? « I teach so that you won’t be able to write music». That’s Schoenberg quoted by his student John Cage in Jacqueline Caux’s film «The Colors of the Prism, the Mechanics of Time». As for Cage, what interests him most, he says in an archival interview ( in French), are the «ugliest things», because in the end we realize that they’re not ugly at all, «but life itself». Ms. Caux mostly lets the composers do the talking, three cheers for Steve Reich and Terry Riley, who give good accounts of process and influence, and whose music sounds espacially fresh.
Independant B4, tuesday, june 14 and june 17, 2011, Joe Bendel
Caux’s The colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time. 4 stars
Director : Jacqueline Caux
Cast : John Cage, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley
Running Time : 96 minutes
Even for persistently un-commercial avant-garde music, New York has been the city of opportunity. Granted, composers might not make their fortunes here. For instance, Steve Reich made better bread driving a city cab than from his academic gig, but in New York he was able to mount performances of his music. Drawing on the work of her late husband Daniel Caux, music documentarian Jacqueline Caux surveys American contemporary classical / New Music and related developments in «The Colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time», which opens this friday in New York at the Anthology Film Archives.
While Daniel Caux serve as «Prism’s» primary narrator and analyst, the film starts at the source with the archival voice of John Cage. From Cage, the Cauxes segue to some of the most prolific and uncompromising composers of the mid-to-late Twentieth Century and early 2000’s. Granted, the music of some can be difficult to embrace, such as Pauline Oliveros and his radically recontextualized accordion. Though to an extend, Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians is exactly the sort of cyclical pulsing we might anticipate, but its insinuating rythmic drive and crisp accessibility will surprise many.
Despite its more chalenging harmonics, the dramatic character and melodic structure of Meredith Mnk’s vocal compositions will also keep viewers engaged. As arguably the best known figure in «Prism», Philip Glass presents some appropriately representative chamber compositions that will safely reassure viewers largely familiar with the composer through his film scores.
After thoroughly acclimating viewers to Contemporary classical ( or whatever term one might prefer), «Prism» takes an apparent third act detour to Detroit, introducing local DJ Richie Hawtin, who spins under the handle Plastikman. Yet, the Cauxes subtly tie it all together, explicitly comparing the trance like effect of both styles of music.
Probably no feat of spectacular daring will be sufficient to convince many movie-goers «Prism» is a film for general audience, yet it most certainly is. The Cauxes take this music seriously and present it in a deliberatly appealing manner. A thoughtful and often poetic film, «Prism» opens this Friday (6/17) in New York at The Anthology Film Archives.
Film Journal International, June 17, 2011 - Nicole V. Gagné.
Daniel Caux - musicologist, music critic, and organizer of numerous concerts and events - passed away in 2008, a year before his wife, producer / director Jacqueline Caux, completed her film «The Colors of the Prism, The Mecanics of Time». Utilizing his script as well as archival footage and audio of her husband discussing this music, she provides a helpful introduction to the eight composer / musicians who are featured in this film. Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Gavin Bryars and Richie Hawtin (a.k.a. Plastikman) get about ten minutes a piece to talk about their work and play some of it for the camera. The film’s use of archival commentary by the late John Cage, an essential figure in the development of postmodern music, also provides insights and a greater context for these composers.
Through his innovation of chance and indeterminate composition in the 1950’s, Cage wrote scores devoid of intellectual and emotional content, in which any hierarchy of importance among the sounds was strictly avoided. The result was a non-dramatic music that opened the doors for different forms of minimalist composition in the 1960’s and ‘70s. The subgenre of minimalism most succesful with audiences has been the use of repeated patterns against a constant pulse, and that approach is the film’s primary focus with sequences on Riley, Reich, Glass, Monk and Hawtin. Due acknowledgement is made of their major works, with snippets of landmark ensemble music by Riley (In C) and Reich (Music for Eighteen Musicans) and major operas by Glass (Satyagraha) and Monk (Vessel).
The welcome inclusion of Young, Oliveros and Bryars brings greater range to the film’s sound world. There are the dense colors of Young’s masterpiece «The Well Tuned Piano», which he lays on a piano retuned in just intonation (a tuning system that follows the intervals of the overtone series rather than the chromatic scale of equal temperament, which has defined Western music). Oliveros’s «Bye Bye Buttely», a classic of spontaneous electronic music, is excerpted, and she also performes a brief improvisation on accordion also retuned in just intonation. Bryars is heard speaking in class with his students and playing contrabass in a performance of his «Laude Cortonese», a reinvention of Italian madrigal.
Hawtin an exponent of techno music, may seem out of place in a film devoted to what could be called contemporary classical music, but Cauxes make a case for techno’s lineage out of pulse-driven, repeated pattern minimalist music. Hawtin, then in his late 30s, is also the youngest composer featured in the film (all the others are in their 60s or 70s), and the film insists that the growth of techno since the late 1980s represents the true «innovation and soul searching in contemporary music». Audiences, however, may be hard pressed to hear that depth as they observe Hawtin in performance before an enormous crowd, moving knobs and levers to generate a cold and bloddless electronic dance music that doens’t move anyone in his sea of listeners to dance.
Anyone with a serious interest in music will enjoy this film and learn a good deal about some of the most important musical figures of our time.
Village Voice, June 15, 2011 - Nick Pinkerton
«The Colors of the Prism, the Mechanics of Time»
Directed by Jacqueline Caux
June 17 through 23, Anthology Film Archives
A mysterious title for what is, essentially a series of polite calls on the surviving eminences of the (principally American) 20th-century musical avant-garde. High points include a view of a rehearsing Terry Riley, and a chat with his fellow epic beard, La Monte Young, who indulges in some throat singing. «Prism’s» guiding voice, seen preparing a piano with John Cage and heard opining on each of the artists discussed, is filmmaker Jacqueline Caux’s late husband, musicologist and proselytizer Daniel Caux, one of those delightfully encyclopedic Frenchmen whose particular subject was «other musics», including North American underground work of the experimentl, improvisational, drone, minimalist, and-so-on persuasions.
Aside from some interim scenes dwelling on broody cityscapes, the presentation is straight-forward, the interviews candid and familiar, with appeal for both novices and disciples. One wishes, though, for more vintage footage, as is seen in Caux’s also playing portrait tribute to the dancer- choreographer Anna Halprin, who has collaborated with many of «Prism’s» musicians. Attempting to vivify things is a final associative leap, going from a conversation with composer Gavin Bryars, talking of madrigals, stright into the Detroit techno scene, the subject of Caux’s «The Cycles of the Mental Machine».
Time Out June 16-22, 2011 - David Fear
«The Colors of Prism, the Mechanics of Time»
Dir. Jacqueline Caux. 2009
N/R 96 mins. Documentary.
Avant garde composers and experimentals musicians - your Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Meredith Monk - need a straight forward doc describing what they do, and how they do it, about as much as they require adhering to 4/4 time signatures and pentatonic scales. What such outside-the-box artists deserve is a survey as purposefully atonal, boundaryless and visionary as the work they make - and Jacqueline Caux’s look at contemporary musical mavricks hits two out of those three targets.
A longtime advocate of envelopepushing individuals, Caux now takes in a gaggle of high-art freaks and geeks : La Monte Young and Terry Riley, the Hells Angels - ish dronemeiter and his Zen Master disciple who both pioneered minimalist compositions; Glass and Reich, working notions of repetition past their logical endpoints; and Monk, who blends dance and bansheelike wailing into something geuinely otherworldly. Other luminaries drop by to wax poetic; techno DJ Richie «Plastikman» Hawtin is trotted out to connect pop-music idioms to their formally challenging forebears.
Assuming you already know what these folks have accomplished, «Colors» loosey-goosey approach to backstory and structure - miniportraits begin, end and bump up against each others in a truly incredible performance footage. Watching Young discordantly noodle on a piano and Reich stage a percussive cacophony with a dozen musicians, you almost don’t need a recitaion of their résumés. Our advice to newbies : just listen.
Open friday at the Anthology Film Archives
«The Colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time»
Opens on Friday in Manhattan;
Directed by Jacqueline Caux
1 hour 36 minutes.
How’s this for pedagogy ? « I teach so that you won’t be able to write music». That’s Schoenberg quoted by his student John Cage in Jacqueline Caux’s film «The Colors of the Prism, the Mechanics of Time». As for Cage, what interests him most, he says in an archival interview ( in French), are the «ugliest things», because in the end we realize that they’re not ugly at all, «but life itself». Ms. Caux mostly lets the composers do the talking, three cheers for Steve Reich and Terry Riley, who give good accounts of process and influence, and whose music sounds espacially fresh.
Independant B4, tuesday, june 14 and june 17, 2011, Joe Bendel
Caux’s The colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time. 4 stars
Director : Jacqueline Caux
Cast : John Cage, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley
Running Time : 96 minutes
Even for persistently un-commercial avant-garde music, New York has been the city of opportunity. Granted, composers might not make their fortunes here. For instance, Steve Reich made better bread driving a city cab than from his academic gig, but in New York he was able to mount performances of his music. Drawing on the work of her late husband Daniel Caux, music documentarian Jacqueline Caux surveys American contemporary classical / New Music and related developments in «The Colors of the Prism, the Mecanics of Time», which opens this friday in New York at the Anthology Film Archives.
While Daniel Caux serve as «Prism’s» primary narrator and analyst, the film starts at the source with the archival voice of John Cage. From Cage, the Cauxes segue to some of the most prolific and uncompromising composers of the mid-to-late Twentieth Century and early 2000’s. Granted, the music of some can be difficult to embrace, such as Pauline Oliveros and his radically recontextualized accordion. Though to an extend, Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians is exactly the sort of cyclical pulsing we might anticipate, but its insinuating rythmic drive and crisp accessibility will surprise many.
Despite its more chalenging harmonics, the dramatic character and melodic structure of Meredith Mnk’s vocal compositions will also keep viewers engaged. As arguably the best known figure in «Prism», Philip Glass presents some appropriately representative chamber compositions that will safely reassure viewers largely familiar with the composer through his film scores.
After thoroughly acclimating viewers to Contemporary classical ( or whatever term one might prefer), «Prism» takes an apparent third act detour to Detroit, introducing local DJ Richie Hawtin, who spins under the handle Plastikman. Yet, the Cauxes subtly tie it all together, explicitly comparing the trance like effect of both styles of music.
Probably no feat of spectacular daring will be sufficient to convince many movie-goers «Prism» is a film for general audience, yet it most certainly is. The Cauxes take this music seriously and present it in a deliberatly appealing manner. A thoughtful and often poetic film, «Prism» opens this Friday (6/17) in New York at The Anthology Film Archives.
Film Journal International, June 17, 2011 - Nicole V. Gagné.
Daniel Caux - musicologist, music critic, and organizer of numerous concerts and events - passed away in 2008, a year before his wife, producer / director Jacqueline Caux, completed her film «The Colors of the Prism, The Mecanics of Time». Utilizing his script as well as archival footage and audio of her husband discussing this music, she provides a helpful introduction to the eight composer / musicians who are featured in this film. Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Gavin Bryars and Richie Hawtin (a.k.a. Plastikman) get about ten minutes a piece to talk about their work and play some of it for the camera. The film’s use of archival commentary by the late John Cage, an essential figure in the development of postmodern music, also provides insights and a greater context for these composers.
Through his innovation of chance and indeterminate composition in the 1950’s, Cage wrote scores devoid of intellectual and emotional content, in which any hierarchy of importance among the sounds was strictly avoided. The result was a non-dramatic music that opened the doors for different forms of minimalist composition in the 1960’s and ‘70s. The subgenre of minimalism most succesful with audiences has been the use of repeated patterns against a constant pulse, and that approach is the film’s primary focus with sequences on Riley, Reich, Glass, Monk and Hawtin. Due acknowledgement is made of their major works, with snippets of landmark ensemble music by Riley (In C) and Reich (Music for Eighteen Musicans) and major operas by Glass (Satyagraha) and Monk (Vessel).
The welcome inclusion of Young, Oliveros and Bryars brings greater range to the film’s sound world. There are the dense colors of Young’s masterpiece «The Well Tuned Piano», which he lays on a piano retuned in just intonation (a tuning system that follows the intervals of the overtone series rather than the chromatic scale of equal temperament, which has defined Western music). Oliveros’s «Bye Bye Buttely», a classic of spontaneous electronic music, is excerpted, and she also performes a brief improvisation on accordion also retuned in just intonation. Bryars is heard speaking in class with his students and playing contrabass in a performance of his «Laude Cortonese», a reinvention of Italian madrigal.
Hawtin an exponent of techno music, may seem out of place in a film devoted to what could be called contemporary classical music, but Cauxes make a case for techno’s lineage out of pulse-driven, repeated pattern minimalist music. Hawtin, then in his late 30s, is also the youngest composer featured in the film (all the others are in their 60s or 70s), and the film insists that the growth of techno since the late 1980s represents the true «innovation and soul searching in contemporary music». Audiences, however, may be hard pressed to hear that depth as they observe Hawtin in performance before an enormous crowd, moving knobs and levers to generate a cold and bloddless electronic dance music that doens’t move anyone in his sea of listeners to dance.
Anyone with a serious interest in music will enjoy this film and learn a good deal about some of the most important musical figures of our time.
Village Voice, June 15, 2011 - Nick Pinkerton
«The Colors of the Prism, the Mechanics of Time»
Directed by Jacqueline Caux
June 17 through 23, Anthology Film Archives
A mysterious title for what is, essentially a series of polite calls on the surviving eminences of the (principally American) 20th-century musical avant-garde. High points include a view of a rehearsing Terry Riley, and a chat with his fellow epic beard, La Monte Young, who indulges in some throat singing. «Prism’s» guiding voice, seen preparing a piano with John Cage and heard opining on each of the artists discussed, is filmmaker Jacqueline Caux’s late husband, musicologist and proselytizer Daniel Caux, one of those delightfully encyclopedic Frenchmen whose particular subject was «other musics», including North American underground work of the experimentl, improvisational, drone, minimalist, and-so-on persuasions.
Aside from some interim scenes dwelling on broody cityscapes, the presentation is straight-forward, the interviews candid and familiar, with appeal for both novices and disciples. One wishes, though, for more vintage footage, as is seen in Caux’s also playing portrait tribute to the dancer- choreographer Anna Halprin, who has collaborated with many of «Prism’s» musicians. Attempting to vivify things is a final associative leap, going from a conversation with composer Gavin Bryars, talking of madrigals, stright into the Detroit techno scene, the subject of Caux’s «The Cycles of the Mental Machine».
Time Out June 16-22, 2011 - David Fear
«The Colors of Prism, the Mechanics of Time»
Dir. Jacqueline Caux. 2009
N/R 96 mins. Documentary.
Avant garde composers and experimentals musicians - your Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Meredith Monk - need a straight forward doc describing what they do, and how they do it, about as much as they require adhering to 4/4 time signatures and pentatonic scales. What such outside-the-box artists deserve is a survey as purposefully atonal, boundaryless and visionary as the work they make - and Jacqueline Caux’s look at contemporary musical mavricks hits two out of those three targets.
A longtime advocate of envelopepushing individuals, Caux now takes in a gaggle of high-art freaks and geeks : La Monte Young and Terry Riley, the Hells Angels - ish dronemeiter and his Zen Master disciple who both pioneered minimalist compositions; Glass and Reich, working notions of repetition past their logical endpoints; and Monk, who blends dance and bansheelike wailing into something geuinely otherworldly. Other luminaries drop by to wax poetic; techno DJ Richie «Plastikman» Hawtin is trotted out to connect pop-music idioms to their formally challenging forebears.
Assuming you already know what these folks have accomplished, «Colors» loosey-goosey approach to backstory and structure - miniportraits begin, end and bump up against each others in a truly incredible performance footage. Watching Young discordantly noodle on a piano and Reich stage a percussive cacophony with a dozen musicians, you almost don’t need a recitaion of their résumés. Our advice to newbies : just listen.
Open friday at the Anthology Film Archives
