Category: Music
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Community music
In Tokyo-ga, his 1985 documentary about Japan and the cinema of Yasujiro Ozu, German director Wim Wenders observes that, despite never having been there, he feels he knows Japan intimately through having watched so many Japanese films, including those of Ozu. I feel exactly the same, but nevertheless I still harbour a burning desire to go…
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Music of the year and the last record.
End-of-the-year lists are, needless to say, only partly about music. Instead, they are declarations of skilful consumption, performances of connoisseurial discernment and taste, as well as competitive claims to being one of the first to discover a certain musician or her music (parodied so perfectly in LCD Soundsystem’s 2002 song, ‘Losing my Edge’). They also demonstrate…
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The book of the film
With my friend and colleague Brian Baker, I’ve been working on a series of short films for some time, shooting on digital video and Super 8. For various reasons we’ve been unable to devote much time to this project over the last year, but we were able to spend most of yesterday working on the…
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Music for writing: Top 10
Academic writing can be frustrating, anxious, infuriating and slow – particularly when you are running up against deadlines you agreed to months before, and which you now realise were preposterously optimistic. However, it is also one of the pleasures of the job. I look forward to those days when I can shut myself in my…
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A rogue performer: Bowie on film
Turning on the radio on Monday morning and hearing about David Bowie’s death was probably the first time I have been truly upset to hear about the death of a public figure. I have been listening to his music since I bought a cassette of Let’s Dance when I was 13, and his importance to me and to others was that…
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Loving the Alien
My new essay on Avatar, ‘Loving the Alien: Indigenous Protest and Neo-colonial Violence in James Cameron’s Avatar’ has just been published in the handsomely produced volume, Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics and Everyday Dissent (New York; SUNY Press), edited by Imogen Tyler and Katarzyna Marciniak. A pre-publication draft can be found on my academia.edu page here: https://lancaster.academia.edu/BruceBennett
Bruce Bennett 