John Cage - Anything is possible

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Movie
Original title John Cage - Anything is possible
Country of production Germany
original language German / English
Publishing year 2012
length 60 minutes
Rod
Director Thomas von Steinaecker
script Thomas von Steinaecker
production Norbert Busè
camera René Gorski
cut Heidi Reuscher

John Cage - Everything is possible is a documentary by Thomas von Steinaecker , produced by Studio.TV.Film , which was first broadcast on September 1, 2012 at 8:15 p.m. on 3sat on the occasion of the 100th birthday of John Cage on September 5, 2012 . On December 16, 2012, it was broadcast on Swiss television on SRF .

content

The film illuminates the personality of John Cage (1912–1992) not only as a painter, poet, philosopher, but also as one of the most influential artists of his time, who had to struggle with crises from the start. Even at the beginning of his career, Arnold Schönberg did not predict that his pupil would have a great career as a composer. Perhaps because of this, Cage, the son of an inventor and a columnist for the LA Times, remains decidedly on his experimental path as a sound researcher, which initially brings him neither fame nor income. By founding the percussion orchestra together with his wife Xenia, he gains a foothold in the artistic circles of the avant-garde. There he does u. a. Acquaintance with his future partner, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, with whom he founded the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the early 1950s and toured the USA. The film shows humorous archive footage with John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Also interviewed is one of the most important people in Cage's life: Laura Kuhn, his longtime assistant who manages the John Cage Trust and a large archive of his work.

The documentary examines Cage's groundbreaking musical innovations that have had and continue to have a profound impact on musicians around the world to this day; B. on Luigi Nono and Die Einstürzende Neubauten . In addition to the 'Prepared Piano', the development of the twelve-tone technique , which is considered the forerunner of serial music, is part of it. In addition, the principle of chance composition is later used in Merce Cunningham's choreographies. Compositions that are initially decided by a coin toss are soon generated by the computer. The silent piece 4'33 ″ (1952) is reinterpreted for the film by John Cage in Berlin Central Station, which confirms the power of his humorous uncompromisingness to this day and is adapted by 40 British pop artists in 2010 in the project Cage Against The Machine . The film ends with the inclusion of this project.

Valuable archive material lets Cage speak for himself. He assumed that the function of art is not to communicate a person's personal ideas and feelings, but rather to imitate nature in its processes. Silence interested him, because it was hardest to find in music. But in pieces like the 'Fontana Mix' (1958) he processes the noises from New York streets. As a neighbor of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York, who get to know each other because Cage complains about the loud music next door, he maintains extensive contacts and friendships in artistic circles. He gains a level of awareness that increasingly burdens him. Some worship him as a savior. The others label him as a charlatan with his absurd performances. Cage soon retires to his country estate in Stony Point, where the passionate mushroom picker devotes himself to his compositions and Zen Buddhism. Letting go of the ego and the desires is his credo, because only then do you really live.

Personalities such as Yoko Ono , Christian Wolff , Dieter Schnebel , Pierre Boulez and the dance legend Merce Cunningham lead through the film and the biography of the exceptional artist in interviews, selected archive recordings and today's performances of John Cage's pieces.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Music document: John Cage - Everything is possible. SRF , accessed on February 18, 2017 .