2003-09-30 - 4:25 p.m.

Last night I watched a bit of Martin Scorcese's "Blues" on the PBS (though only a bit, because I hate those prime-time PBS documentaries. Eat me, Ken Burns). I was rather confused, as the Voice of God narrator was talking about some footage or recording of a blues band from the early half of the century, and the visual was film, done in black and white and sped up but quite obviously filmed quite recently as any aficionado of old film would be able to tell you. I'm not sure if the film was identified as a "reinactment" but the chatter on the AMIA listserv today seems to indicate that it was not. This worries me, for although there may be genuine aesthetic reasons for using faux-archival footage, many of the viewers "Martin Scorcese's Blues" probably do not know how to tell the difference, and it seems irresponsible to offhandedly pass off recreated footage as the real thing.

The chatter on the AMIA listserv also indicates that the director of this film is a one Mr. Wim Wenders . Now, some of you (especially Ben Blattberg) may remeber how much I hate Wenders's Paris, Texas Oh my, do I hate it with a face-stabbing passion. I hate it so much that I'd like to pull out my eyes and stuff them in my ears so that I'll never have to see or hear Paris, Texas again. Apparantly, Wenders has used the aforementioned technique in an earlier documentary, but I have not seen any of his other films because I hate Paris, Texas so fucking much.

So now I hate Wim Wenders even more. Screw you and your faux-archival silliness and your Paris, Texas. No, I don't care if you worked with Nick Cave. Just go away.