Throw Down Your Heart (2008)
This was Bela Fleck's movie about his trip to Africa. He was looking for the origin of the banjo; he found lots of things, but didn't find the origin of the banjo, really.
My first problem is that as a banjo picker and African movie fan, I would love to sit and watch this whole movie several times. But as a person who has lost some hearing to an allergic condition, I find it difficult to listen to. It's partly because I know what I'm hearing but am not quite able to hear it. It's very frustrating.
But I'm also considering writing about Bela Fleck, and if I do, this movie brings up a number of questions.
First, is it possible to put into writing what is happening here? I can understand the movie producers choosing to let the music do the talking. They went to a lot of trouble to get various Africans to agree to be filmed, standing around and appreciating his music, when for example some local musicians come up and play music with him. It's the kind of thing I can appreciate, having traveled extensively with a banjo and having had some of those experiences, although my venues were the London tubes, Winnipeg Manitoba, and Banff. But the movie producers don't have to answer questions that I would want to know: did the banjo evolve into the instruments these Africans are playing? Can people communicate across cultures when even musically they have different kinds of languages?
It's the kind of movie I want to study, and I will. I'm curious if he sees it as a kind of culmination of his career, a peak of what he's done for the banjo, or what: how does he himself see the trip? I think he obviously had the kind of profesional filmmaking expertise to take with him, and made a good film out of it, and I'm curious if this film has changed people's view of the banjo at all, or even, of him. I believe it was a highly acclaimed film. And, successful, for its limited genre. Some of these are actually questions; by now I don't know what I'm talking about. All this is to learn. Comments please.
My first problem is that as a banjo picker and African movie fan, I would love to sit and watch this whole movie several times. But as a person who has lost some hearing to an allergic condition, I find it difficult to listen to. It's partly because I know what I'm hearing but am not quite able to hear it. It's very frustrating.
But I'm also considering writing about Bela Fleck, and if I do, this movie brings up a number of questions.
First, is it possible to put into writing what is happening here? I can understand the movie producers choosing to let the music do the talking. They went to a lot of trouble to get various Africans to agree to be filmed, standing around and appreciating his music, when for example some local musicians come up and play music with him. It's the kind of thing I can appreciate, having traveled extensively with a banjo and having had some of those experiences, although my venues were the London tubes, Winnipeg Manitoba, and Banff. But the movie producers don't have to answer questions that I would want to know: did the banjo evolve into the instruments these Africans are playing? Can people communicate across cultures when even musically they have different kinds of languages?
It's the kind of movie I want to study, and I will. I'm curious if he sees it as a kind of culmination of his career, a peak of what he's done for the banjo, or what: how does he himself see the trip? I think he obviously had the kind of profesional filmmaking expertise to take with him, and made a good film out of it, and I'm curious if this film has changed people's view of the banjo at all, or even, of him. I believe it was a highly acclaimed film. And, successful, for its limited genre. Some of these are actually questions; by now I don't know what I'm talking about. All this is to learn. Comments please.
posted by tom at 2:07 PM
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