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Thursday, August 18, 2005
The director’s eye returns
First off, to all the Vootie people: I thank you. It surprises me that people would read that whole damn meme about my silly life but I’m glad they did. The other people who participated in the meme were interesting, I suggest you seek them out (Graeme’s post is a good place to start).
Now is a time where I tell you of another comic book to movie scene I’d like to see. I did a post describing five scenes I wish to see and here’s one more. Maybe there will be even more in the future, I don’t know.
Preacher
As with most of the scenes I describe, music is important. There are few things I like better in movies than when a great scene is pared with a great pop song. Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas alone is full of them) are some of the masters at this. After seeing The Devil’s Rejects I think you can say Rob Zombie is on his way at being one, too. If I ever become a director maybe I’ll have my shot. Until then we have the blog posts.
The song to open the film is Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky.” It’s a song with a really mean swagger of a groove to it. The guitar sounds are some of the dirtiest guitar sounds you’ll ever hear. That one riff with the delay effect on it sounds really scary and evil. Then the lyrics come in and you find that it’s a happy song about liking Jesus.
During the opening of the song we see a bar in Texas hopping with the local regulars. That scene is cut between various shots of a man walking down a dark and empty Texas road at night. We see his white suit, the collar around his neck and the bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, but we never see his face. He walks slowly but confidently as Greenbaum sings about going to the place that’s the best and that sinister swing is in full force.
When Greenbaum and the female back-up signer tells us about the spirit in the sky we see the Adelphi in Heaven confronted with one of the Seraphi bringing them his headless brother’s corpse. Then there are a few more shots of this man of God walking down the street and the bar he’ll end up in.
Before the second verse we see a blonde woman looking through a cracked window to see three men in a car, one with is mouth blown off. She looks frightened and confused at what she’s done. She runs into a truck driven by a man with sunglasses. She points a gun at his face and he flashes her a distinctly Irish smile. The woman, Tulip, is played by Hope Davis and the Irish fellow is played by Tim Roth.
During the second verse Greenbaum sings “Prepare yourself you know it’s must/Gotta have a friend in Jesus.” It’s right when “Jesus” is uttered that we see Jesse Custer’s eyes. They are filled with weariness, anger but also something resembling hope. Custer is played by Vince Vaughn. As the second verse ends Custer opens the door to this bar the patrons visit just as regularly as church. He is going to get a few things off his chest.
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