April 30, 2005
The Girl From Monday
Hal Hartley introduced his latest project, The Girl from Monday at The Roxie. After the screening, he cheerfully fielded questions, discussing his methods when filming film stock vs. digital video, on which TGFM was shot; his approach to music composition and film scoring ("I wrote the music first, then shot"); and whether he and Martin Donovan, one of his frequent collaborators, will work together again ("Yes." I was quite glad that someone asked).
The film was evocative, the plot funny, and the music a good complement. Bill Sage, carving the handsome, do-good profile of a latter-day Cary Grant, plays an adman caught up in the new economy he helped create, where citizens are stockholders in the corporate machine of consumerism. Disposable income is a driving force behind the market, until The Company (known as Triple M) develops a method for using sex to increase shareholder value. Many of the grainy exterior scenes were shot in Lower Manhattan and the Lower East Side, and evoke the timeless business of a city.
In an interview with Green Cine, Hartley remarked that he draws inspiration from the textures of Sonic Youth. And before the show, Greg treated us to a rendition of the dance from Hartley's Simple Men, set to Kim Gordon's crooning of "Kool Thing".
I'm posting this for Joseph, who had to bail at the last minute in order to save the world from stale search results (his heroics succeeded! hurrah!).
