M&M #18

HiM – Peoples (2006)

When I think about jazz, I imagine the dark heat of night sweltering beneath lights on stages in clubs of teaming bodies and smoke and foul bright moods. I think about the sworn free soul of Jack Kerouac lurching through drunken clouds of words to find God embodied in George Shearing. I remember walking in Soho and dancing down steps through a red door beneath street level to see if we can find a bite to eat but discovering a woman with the softest and sweetest voice enchanting a half empty bar. I wanted to stay and wallow in the beauty of that moment, regardless of the needs of my belly. I wanted to devour that phantom gap in the night as it took a moment to breathe. HiM embodies the spirit of jazz and communes with the pulse of a dream of longing that rose up through the soil of this dark nation.


Henry & June – Philip Kaufman (1990)

The story of Anais Nin's sexual awakening in Paris circa 1931. She meets Henry Miller and his wife June through a friend of her husband, Hugo. While June exudes carnal charm, Henry works on his first novel 'Tropic of Cancer'. Eventually Henry and Anais embark on a torrid love affair that will last the ages. What makes this movie so wonderful is that the look and feel of it embodies the bohemian artist Paris where these characters churn out their lives. I believed that this was exactly how it was and it was a world that I began to love as the movie unfolded. I wanted to live there and write and carry on friendships with magicians and photographers and feel the passion of the Paris nights as they shift and change shape around me.