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Chadwick JenkinsAbout Chadwick JenkinsChadwick lives in New York City and teaches Music History and Theory at The City College of New York. He earned his doctorate in Musicology at Columbia University. He has given papers on topics ranging from 12th Century lament to Duke Ellington and early radio to the use of Wagner’s music in Bugs Bunny cartoons. He has published in scholarly journals on the music of John Cage, Richard Strauss, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He has taught courses on music history, the history of rock, and the history of jazz at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Columbia University Features
The Aesthetics of Absorption: Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’In Truffaut, the camera works not to keep the viewer out of the constructed reality of the film but rather to draw the viewer into the artifice, to make the viewer complicit in its feigned reality [2 April 2009] John Cassavetes’ Faces: The Authenticity of DiscomfortThe camera always gets too close in Cassavetes’ films. These aren’t close-ups; they are invasions of private space. [2 March 2009] Rossellini and the Filter of Neo-RealismThese films flaunt their artifice and yet there are moments when something else emerges -- some rarefied emotion that we connect to reality. [3 February 2009] The ‘Murderous’ Art of George BaselitzFor Baselitz, the true artist is the eternal outsider. While he leads a good bourgeois family life, at his art he becomes a murderer, a man on the fringes of good society, a destroyer. [25 November 2008] Bruce Nauman and The Art of ThinkingIn Bruce Nauman's art no complacency is allowed to reside. The complacent can only flee. [15 October 2008] The Technology of the Occult: Méliès and the Invention of FilmLike any illusionist, Méliès created wonderment with only the slightest of pretense, creating a filmic language that continues to be explored and exploited today. [19 June 2008] It’s Not Nice, It’s Art!In the film version of The Threepenny Opera, Pabst managed to accomplish what Brecht could not: a true reconciliation between the satiric jubilance of the original stage play and the politically driven cynicism of Brecht’s revision. [12 November 2007] Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Vocal Lightning Captured in a Fragile BottleFischer-Dieskau's voice carries us to that primal, first speech, that musical utterance that communicates desire, represents passion, and attempts to eradicate the barriers that separate human beings. [31 August 2007] Henrik Ibsen: The Courage of the Loss of One’s ConvictionsThis collection of Ibsen's plays is something of an event -- one that is not likely to be repeated anytime soon -- worthy of our attention and, perhaps, even our gratitude. [17 August 2007] Spaghetti War Flicks: World War II Brought to Life, Sort ofI love Spaghetti Westerns, even the not-so-great ones. I even like the bad dubbing. [18 July 2007] The Master of Light and ShadowRembrandt reaches into the dark spaces of his subject and exposes the subject's inner self, thereby confronting the viewer with the somewhat unsettling presence of another human being. [2 July 2007] James Cagney: Another Look at Hollywood’s Tough GuyThe Cagney features collected here are not "must-owns", but they are enjoyable "might-owns" for anyone who takes pleasure in watching a talented actor finding moments of undiluted joy in work-a-day films. [26 April 2007] An Unnamed ChapterVerdict on Auschwitz goes a long way toward guaranteeing that this "unnamed chapter" in human history shall not remain unspoken; it will reverberate throughout history as a reminder of the depths of depravity into which human beings may fall. [19 April 2007] Aronofsky: A Shockingly Talented and Aggressive FilmmakerAside from being the early efforts of a shockingly talented and aggressive filmmaker, Requiem for a Dream and Π -- while relating quite different stories -- share an underlying narrative structure and a profound concern for the individual's deeply embedded need for the patterns that inform his/her life. [12 April 2007] Lest We Should ForgetThe unanticipated moments, the flickering images of people dying and afraid, make the War Chronicles series a haunting testimony to the tribulations of the individual despite the script's framing narrative depicting the nearly anonymous unfolding of events. [27 February 2007] The Birth of an Idea: Instant NationThe history of the United States is essentially the history of an idea; the idea that all men are created equal, and its gradual manifestation in actuality with all of its contradictions and hypocrisies. [17 January 2007] Columns
The Sounds of Now: Tristan Murail and Sounding StasisWhat happens to the ear when it receives musical sound? Do we hear "our" music as music and the rest as noise? [2 July 2008] (more Variations on a Theme) The Practicality of the Impossible: John Cage and the Freeman EtudesJohn Cage replaces the comforting order of the cosmos with the recalcitrant, indecipherable organization of a part of the universe. Each sound, radically set off from the others, demands that we hear it in isolation. [2 May 2008] (more Variations on a Theme) Every Good Boy Does FineRequired to take a music class in high school I signed up for chorus, but the teacher offered me $50 to drop the class – and other ruminations about learning to play the piano. [21 February 2008] (more Variations on a Theme) Restoring Intellectual DayIt rankles my sensibilities that great music is considered "timeless" and therefore Handel's music still "means" today whatever it was it meant in his own time. [17 January 2008] (more Variations on a Theme) Schroeder’s Dilemma: The Christmas Carol, as Lucy Likes ItThe Christmas carol is neither high art nor popular claptrap; it is neither austerely sacred nor tritely popular; it is both timeless and timely, traditional and modern. [6 December 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Bull of Phalaris, or the Ambiguity of Musical ViolenceBy working directly on the body, music as a whole has access to a form of violence that far outstrips the petty accusations foisted upon certain of its constituent parts, such as hard rock and rap. [12 October 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Sounds of Now: Steve Reich and the Transmogrification of the BanalAs human beings, interpretive animals that attempt to navigate the world by coming to some sort of "understanding" of it, we are addicted to purpose. [8 August 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Profound Consolation: The Use of Bach’s Music in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Part 4)The music in Bergman's Saraband sets up numerous tensions that it never reconciles: listener and performer, individual and group, passive aestheticism and practical enactment. Music in Bergman's world offers hope, but it does not offer answers. [20 July 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) On Lexus, Hairapy, and the Scherzo from Beethoven’s Ninth (with a nod to Kubrick)By making Beethoven's Ninth an image of our humanity, we have conditioned ourselves to filter out all of those elements in the music that make it a worthwhile (if troubling) listening experience. [8 June 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) Classical Radio Communities: Thoughts on MediationClassical music radio gives rise to a prophylactic form of community: we are somehow participating with other listeners without having to engage directly with those others. The music becomes a pretense for communal participation. [27 April 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) Why Don’t the Planets Speak?: An Inquiry Into Music and LanguageSpeech involves saying something individual in a rigid system of conformity. Music seems to attempt something similar -- or, more appropriately, people attempt something similar through music. [23 March 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Sounds of Now, Part Three: Anthony Braxton and the Ethics of ImprovisationJenkins's latest installment in a series of contemporary composer profiles discusses Anthony Braxton, who seems to have looked to music as a means not to erase or ignore cultural dissonance but rather to confront it directly. [23 January 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Profound Consolation: The Use of Bach’s Music in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Part 3)What Vogler hears in Bach is both the acknowledgement of the eternal sameness of our lives and the spiritual longing for untainted pure being -- Bach attains transcendence only through the transmutation of human despair and eternal sameness. [3 January 2007] (more Variations on a Theme) The Profound Consolation: The Use of Bach’s Music in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Part 2)In the second installment of an ongoing discussion of Bach and Bergman, Jenkins examines the communicative power of Bach's sarabande in Through a Glass Darkly. [15 November 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) The Profound Consolation: The Use of Bach’s Music in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Part 1)In Bergman's films, Bach's music functions to give access to a rarified atmosphere of revelation and emotional depth; it reveals something previously inaccessible within a character. [13 October 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) An Overheard Conversation Concerning Musical Taste'But who determines the criteria by which one determines if something is well formed?' A debate of taste rages in a small field outside Maryland. [11 September 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) The Sounds of Now, Part Two: Meredith MonkFor the second installment in an ongoing series profiling contemporary composers, Jenkins reports on Meredith Monk, whose compositions and performances integrate the personal aspects of the body in a manner wholly removed from the majority of current musical production. [11 August 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) Melodic Patriotism: A Look at Some Lesser-Known Pieces for the Fourth of JulyIn observance of Independence Day, Jenkins examines some overlooked classical manifestations of American patriotism that may be more appropriate than Tchaikovsky's US-adopted 1812 Overture. [30 June 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) The Devil’s Music: Franz Liszt’s Musical Representation of MephistophelesLiszt's Faust symphony offers a solution to the conundrum that faced so many Romantic and post-Romantic composers: how does one create a musical form that continually and progressively unfolds and yet manages to hold together, to be all 'of a piece'? [9 June 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) Judging a Bach By Its CoverIf people are no longer as interested in classical music as a cerebral escape from the banalities of the everyday, then certain producers of classical recordings are willing to embrace this cultural condition by selling Bach not as an alternative to popular image culture, but as a part of it. [19 May 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) On the Necessity of Listening As ConfrontationHow can you possibly know why you 'like' something you assume you like unless you confront that which you have dismissed? Jenkins discusses the importance of spending time with the music that immediately displeases us. [20 April 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) The Sounds of Now: Brian FerneyhoughIn the first of a series of contemporary composer profiles, Jenkins discusses Brian Ferneyhough, whose complex scores force performers to confront the boundaries of the possible. [2 March 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) Stop Playing with Your Ticket: An Investigation of Concert-going PracticesFeeling stifled by symphonic stodginess? Jenkins reviews concert-going practices of previous centuries and suggests ways to improve the concert experience in our own. [1 February 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) Songs Without Words, or So They Say: A Meditation on TitlesExactly how should the title of a wordless piece of music influence our experience of the music itself? Jenkins muses on how titles interact with the instrumental pieces they represent and, furthermore, on musical selections with no titles at all. [11 January 2006] (more Variations on a Theme) Out of Proportion: Understanding the Medieval MotetThere is a parallel heard in the complex, seemingly conflicted harmony of 13th century music to today's dissonant world. As we struggle to fold our differences into an orchestrated 'global' accord, we might do well to challenge ourselves to stop, and truly listen. [16 December 2005] (more Variations on a Theme) A Historicist Manifesto: Why Classical MattersClassical music, as a culturally archaic archetype of stodginess, has long been disassociated from a contemporary relevance. Can we make it meaningful again now that we've told Beethoven to roll over? [23 November 2005] (more Variations on a Theme) Reviews
The 39 StepsIn Hitchcock's world, we don't write the play; we just have to know when to act. [6 November 2009]
The Tales of HoffmannThis is perhaps the only filmed opera that one could view with the sound turned off and the viewer would still come away mesmerized. [21 October 2009]
Throne of BloodIn Throne of Blood, Ambition appears as something outside of the human character that preys upon pride and contributes to the demise of the prideful. [16 October 2009] 
Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940 by Chad HeapIf you want to understand race and sexuality in the United States, don't bother with policy -- look at entertainment! [9 October 2009] 
Life Between Two Deaths, 1989-2001, by Phillip E. WegnerWegner depicts this period in recent history as open to all possibilities, possibilities that come crashing down with the World Trade Center attacks and the subsequent War on Terror. [6 October 2009]
GervaiseIn Gervaise, we seek to forgive the main character only to find ourselves complicit in her downfall. [1 October 2009]
Le Jour se lèveBy embodying the contradictions of poetic realism, Le jour se lève projects beauty and hope as both necessary to working class existence and impossible for the disenfranchised to attain. [30 September 2009]
MayerlingA study in romantic nihilism, Mayerling captivates by transmuting the acceptance of death into the ultimate proof of love. [25 September 2009] 
MansonIn a manner of speaking, nobody is responsible for the Tate-LaBianca killings; and that nobody is Manson. [4 September 2009] 
Some Liked It Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television, 1928-1959 by Kristin A. McGeeHistory is not simply out there awaiting someone to come along and narrate it. It is a product of the historical imagination. [17 August 2009] 
Selling Sounds by David SuismanWell-researched and beautifully documented, replete with beautiful illustrations and photographs, this book belongs on the shelf of any reader serious about popular music and the music industry. [19 June 2009] 
The InternationalI could have sworn that I offered to review a documentary on the “Internationale” — you know, the French socialist anthem. [15 June 2009] 
Pigs, Pimps, & Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei ImamuraImamura’s brilliance lies in his stark insistence that the dignity of the human being resides in our irremediable right of refusal. [5 June 2009] 
The Exterminating AngelThe point in Buñuel is that there is no point -- only subversive play. [27 February 2009] 
Sonny Rollins: Saxophone ColossusThere are many good reasons to get to know Rollins and his music on a deeper level, but this film is not the means for attaining that knowledge. [29 January 2009] 
Griffith Masterworks 2With D.W. Griffith that it's the telling of the story (and not the story itself) that makes for a truly great filmic experience. [19 December 2008] 
Buffalo Heads by Peter Weibel, Woody VasulkaThis communication is filtered through the medium of this image on your screen, surrounded by advertisements and links that I did not choose to bring to you, that I cannot foretell. [5 December 2008] 
The 2007 Newport Music Festival: Connoisseur’s CollectionHeld in vast chambers with exquisite interiors, the concerts are a reminder of the cultural and economic structures that subtend such ostentatious musical displays. [12 September 2008] 
Balthus Through the Looking GlassThe film abandons criticism for adulation, neglects a consideration of his work in favor of an overblown romance, and eschews commentary by replacing it with atmosphere. [27 August 2008] 
Vito Acconci: In Conversation at Acconci Studio, New YorkPerformance artist Vito Acconci talks with students, but no real conversation takes place. [26 August 2008] 
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: Special EditionThis video beautifully illustrates what a wonderful achievement Fallingwater was, making this DVD set a wonderful achievement in its own right. [21 August 2008] 
Jean-Luc Godard: 3-Disc Collector’s EditionFor all of pretense surrounding these films and their attempts to grapple with "big ideas", they are, ultimately, experiences that one must live through; they demand viewing and listening. [21 March 2008] 
In Search of the Blues by Marybeth HamiltonThis is a different story of the blues; it is the story of those people (primarily white men and women) who were in search of something that they believed the blues or some other form of secular and "primitive" African-American music communicated in an undiluted manner. [7 March 2008] 
Modernism by Peter GayAlas, this entire book amounts to a collection of blurbs on various artists that might easily have been gleaned from program notes, dust jackets, or the brief commentary one reads on museum walls next to paintings. [1 February 2008] 
Grenadier Guards: Hands Across the Sea [DVD]Man's utter incapability of peaceful resolution to conflict and the pride we take in our capacity for killing each other – set to universally recognized music. [9 January 2008] 
Sawdust and Tinsel: Criterion CollectionCouples in this film draw blood in order to feel the human warmth left behind by bruises. [11 December 2007] 
The Agnostic ReaderThe book would have benefited from more dedicated considerations of the implications of doubt for human understanding and action. Aside from the final section, these concerns were not much in evidence. [30 November 2007] 
Django Reinhardt: King of Jazz Guitar [DVD]Perhaps the most damning thing one could say about this biography is that you probably won't learn anything you couldn't have gleaned from the liner notes of a Django CD. [1 November 2007] 
The House on Skull Mountain / The Mephisto WaltzThese films are far more an embarrassment of riches (well, riches of a mildly titillating sort, at least) than they are a simple embarrassment. They are all the more delightful for being a guilty pleasure. [24 October 2007] 
VerdiElder wants to pass off renderings of Verdi’s music as explication of that music; he wants to imagine that light anecdotes are equivalent to substantive commentary, that blind adulation is critical insight. [4 October 2007] 
Harvest of SorrowTony Palmer’s wonderfully constructed film captures the mood of “lateness” that pervaded the career of Sergei Rachmaninoff. [27 September 2007] 
England, My EnglandAs a biopic, it simply fails, but as a means of contemplating aspects of English history and the enigma of Purcell, this film has some intriguing moments intertwined with some glorious performances of the music of Purcell. [19 September 2007] 
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resister (2003)Simultaneously a beautiful study of human life mired in great adversity and a lost opportunity for revealing the intricate depths of theological thought in Nazi Germany, this film foolishly sacrifices its greatest potential asset: the wonderfully rich theological writings that justify Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a subject suitable for general interest. [22 June 2007] 
Sam Moore: The Original Soul Man [DVD]During the second half of the DVD, the entire performance venue is fashioned to resemble a large, all-encompassing jukebox that entombs Sam Moore in the stale nostalgia for a past that cannot be recovered and that cannot be superceded; it is a sad, if telling image. [18 June 2007] 
Aristide and the Endless Revolution (2005)This documentary consistently utilizes Aristide as a prism through which to glimpse the horrifying contradictions and turbulences that suffuse Haitian society.fr [15 June 2007] 
Seinfeld - Season 7Season 7 of Seinfeld ties every extraneous idea to the rest, and weaves a tapestry of empty detail. The result: something fabulous made of nothing. [22 November 2006] 
Divas and Scholars by Philip GossettThis book attempts to come to grips with the sometimes rather fraught intersection between the scholarly ideal and the practical exigencies of the stage. [9 October 2006] 
The Kids in the Hall: Complete Season 4If we share Freud's liberationist stance on the power of humor, then no sketch comedy series is more pure and direct in its dissident hilarity than The Kids in the Hall. [29 May 2006] 
The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Third SeasonIt might be properly said that Newhart -- in his quiet, insecure manner -- represents something of a shrugging mode of subversion. [10 April 2006] 
Danger Mouse: The Complete Seasons 5 & 6Lest audiences should think that American Idol's Simon Cowell is the apotheosis of British wit, allow me to submit for your consideration the name of Danger Mouse. [27 March 2006] BlogsChannel Surfing: New History Channel Show: Pawn Stars [17 July 2009] |
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