Long before I had actually seen Azazel Jacobs’ second feature, The GoodTimesKid, I had heard tell of its final scene, in which the Gang of Four song “Damaged Goods” is played in its entirety. It takes a certain kind of confidence to use a Gang of Four song in a cinematic context. Deceptively simple post-punk loaded with weighty narrative, it’s virtually impossible to match this music with imagery without the filmmaker’s voice getting lost in the noise, without the soundtrack seemingly functioning as a mission statement above and beyond what the rest of the film has to say. Certainly, the thesis of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette seems most articulate in its opening scene, set to a lengthy excerpt of Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not in It” — the song serves as a key to unlocking that film’s visual indulgence, placing its evocation of angsty teen consumption and self-absorption within the irony of “problems of leisure” and the political context of the “body [as] good business.”
Jacobs makes the viewer wait about 70 minutes for the first use of “Damaged Goods,” but the song’s ethos still felt throughout the film. If there’s anything missed from Benten Films’ long-awaited release of The GoodTimesKid, it’s the full text of the letter, peeking out of the corner of the DVD box, that Jacobs wrote to the band asking for use of the song.
In Gang of Four songs, sex and commerce, personal relationships and socio-economic identity, are always inextricably linked, to the point where an apparent reference to one can be safely assumed to double for the other. It’s articulated best in another song, “Contract”: “Social dreams put in practice in the bedroom.” “Damaged Goods” swings back and forth: it’s a break-up song (“The change’ll do you good, I always knew it would/sometimes I’m thinking that I love you, but I know it’s only lust”) that dips into the language of transaction (“Damaged goods, send them back … open the till, give me the change you said would do me good/ refund the cost.”) It’s a fitting theme song for a film about three people desperate for change, bouncing back and forth between embracing the sentimentality of personal relationships and rejecting it. Never mind that it was shot on damaged short ends stolen from the set of Troy.
Exciting times! Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man has spread through the festival circuit like a deadpan, unexpectedly emotionally resonant virus (see our interview and review from Sundance) on its way to eventual theatrical release via ThinkFilm. Now, Jacobs’ previous film, The GoodTimesKid, is screening in Brooklyn for free on Monday night, as part of the Brooklyn Independent Cinema series at Barbes.
The GoodTimesKid, which stars Jacobs himself opposite girlfriend Sara Diaz, was famously shot on 35mm stolen from the truck of a big Hollywood production; the film’s tagline works the procurement of the tools of production into the narrative by branding it “a story about stolen love and stolen identities, shot on stolen film.” The fact that this is a DIY production even becomes the subject of the trailer, which consists of a montage of shots of the actors, slating each scene with a hand clap.
I’ve embedded that trailer above; theoretically, there are a number of clips from the film on MySpace, but due to the, um, ideosyncrasies of MySpace video, I haven’t been able to get any of them to load.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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