CRITICAL MASS HYSTERIA! (1978-)

During a bout of insomnia tonight, I found myself looking for a movie to watch as I scanned through my overloaded email inbox. Yeah, the whole movie part was just supposed to be background accompaniment. Do you ever put movies on just because it feels like you’ve got some company while you’re doing mundane things? I do.  

I decided on P.T. Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love. At the risk of being harassed by way-too-serious illuminati, let me say that I’m a huge fan of Anderson’s. And it’s not just because his films are heady, or filmed marvelously, or acted superbly, which they are. It’s because they’re funny. I laugh my ass off every time during the hot tub scenes in Boogie Nights, or the “Give me the blood, Lord!” scene in There Will Be Blood.    

But this missive isn’t about my admiration for P.T. Anderson. It’s about the great Jeremy Blake, who is responsible for the unique visual “hallucinations” in Punch-Drunk Love: those distinctive, swirling colors that interject themselves between important scenes. Tonight while watching, I was re-captivated by these “in-between” moments (which are accompanied by orchestrations and dubs of dialogue, see * below if you’re not familiar with the movie), and I remembered doing research a couple years ago on who created them. Jeremy was also responsible for the insanely cool multiple cover designs for Beck’s 2002 album, Sea Change.

Very tragically, Jeremy Blake died in 2007 after committing suicide one week after his long-term girlfriend did the same. It was a bizarre love story; the two claimed that Scientologists were following and harassing them incessantly, and they became increasingly paranoid about it. Jeremy was last seen walking into the ocean off the New York City coastline. (An exhaustive report about the saga can be found in New York Magazine here, if you’re interested.) Speculate at will, but this blog really isn’t about the drama - it’s about the work.

Besides the Beck album, it’s difficult to find hi-res versions of Jeremy’s art online, so the split piece above will have to suffice. It’s from his 2003 series called “Winchester.” Much of his work was done digitally, although if asked, it seems Jeremy quantified himself as a painter.   

I’m not really a high art guy. I haven’t been to many galleries and openings, or understood the work and collections of great abstractionists like I have understood music and film. And this particular blog isn’t the beginning of a quest to increase the perceived I.Q. of my ongoing writings. But when I’m moved by something enough to call it necessary to me, I’ll put it up here. I think the work of Jeremy Blake is truly wonderful and evocative, and I can’t imagine what Punch-Drunk Love would be without his contribution. 

*See the Punch-Drunk Love “hallucinations” in motion here if you’re not sure what I’m talking about anyway.

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