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Lyrics have the ability to touch an impossibly vast number of people, usually in very different ways. Just play "Dancing Queen" to a mixed crowd and witness the results. As a powerful reminder of a certain place in time, lyrics can sink in and stick with you forever—for better or worse.
That concept is at the core of The Lyric Project, a Web series by Chicago transplant Ezekiel Brown. The idea is simple: Brown asked people to submit audio recordings of themselves reading lyrics that meant the most to them. Brown then listened to the recitations and created a short film for each, with the original recording playing over the visuals.
Brown will present the first full season of The Lyric Project next Monday at the Clinton Street Theater, in what he promises to be a fully immersive multimedia event akin to an art installation by way of a party.
The films that populate The Lyric Project are a highly varied bunch—from a reading of Lauryn Hill's "That Thing" paired with closeups of the inner workings of lighthouses to a spoken-word take on Kendrick Lamar's "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe" over a surreal scene of a wounded man dragging a body down a beach. The National's "Pink Rabbits" takes on a strange, Beat-era tone with noir-style images of a chair sitting lonely in different spots around Portland. The Deftones' "RX Queen" takes on a more sinister vibe with a short, first-person film about a woman being stalked through alleys.
Each film—some took as long as two months to finish—is a stand-alone piece. But Brown stuck to one specific premise for them all. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the program is that Brown approached lyrics based not on the actual song but on each participant's experience with it.
"When I get a submission, I never look at the music video. I try to be as blank slate as possible," Brown says over coffee in Northeast Portland. "I spend a week listening to their performances [the recording submitted], their vocal breaks. I try to avoid the song completely. That gives too much of a reference to me. It's all about their primal connection to the song, and what it means to them."
Adding another layer to the creative process, Brown's brother in Chicago scored each film. It's curious how very different a musician's interpretation can be when divorced sonically from its source and forced to process the original song as raw poetry instead.
If this all sounds heavy, well, it can be. It all depends on the sound bites people send to Brown. But the filmmaker insists that giving people criteria for submissions would sabotage the concept of submitting the songs that mean the most to them.
"I thought about making it thematic, like only summer jams—give us your R. Kelly and your Fresh Prince—but I don't want to force people to think about one thing," he says. "That one thing might not mean the most to them, which would counter the whole premise."
SEE IT: The Lyric Project screens at the Clinton Street Theater. 6:30 pm Monday, Oct. 5. $3.
Also Showing:
Church of Film wraps up its French Film Fantastique series with Marcel Carne's sad and dreamlike 1951 fantasy Juliette or the Key of Dreams. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Pix's excellent run of Movies at Dusk ends at its own personal Bridge of the Gods with Wild. Pix Patisserie. 7 pm Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Re-Run Theater harkens back to the time when MTV featured things other than garishly dressed prima donnas. You know, like Prince and Madonna and Tina Turner. Here, they're showing the best music videos 1985 had to offer, from Dire Straits to Simple Minds. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Weird Wednesday unearths Argoman, which is a 1967 Eurotrash superhero film and not, sadly, a rollicking sequel to the Ben Affleck Oscar winner in which Affleck's character becomes irradiated and goes on to fight Castro. Joy Cinema. 9 pm Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Coke dealers, martial artists, '80s bands, and all manner of absurdity collide in VHS-era non-classic Miami Connection, which finally gets its time to shine in the multiplex. Century Clackamas Town Center. 8 pm Thursday, Oct. 1.
Fashion in Film resurrects Bram Stoker's Dracula, in which Gary Oldman dresses up like your eccentric grandma, Keanu Reeves chokes on an English accent, Tom Waits eats bugs, and Francis Ford Coppola makes a strong case for mixing cocaine and gothic horror lit. Hollywood Theater. 7:30 pm Thursday, Oct. 1.
The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival celebrates its 20th year in Portland with a total blowout featuring a '20s-style gala featuring burlesque performances; film screenings; and an appearance by Jeffrey Combs, whose Dr. Herbert West helped make Re-Animator the most beloved and thoroughly enjoyable Lovecraft adaptation of all time. Hollywood Theatre. Friday-Sunday, Oct. 2-4. See Cthulhucon.com for full details.
Both 5th Avenue Cinema and the Academy kick off horror movie season with perennial Halloween classic Beetlejuice. If the Ghost with the Most was this in-demand in the movie, he'd probably have better things to do than try to seduce a teenage Hot Topic worker. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Oct. 2-4. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Oct. 2-8.
If there's anything we should take away from The Thing, it's that maybe we shouldn't be taking advice on blood testing for diabeetus from Wilford Brimley. Kennedy School. Friday-Thursday, Oct. 2-8.
One of the '80s best horror comedies, Fright Night wears its fanboy heart on its gore-soaked sleeve as a teenage dweeb takes the logical step of enlisting a late-night monster-movie host to help him fight the vampire who's banging his mom. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Oct. 2-8.
Is Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers still as biting and scandal-worthy as it was two decades ago? The folks at Night Movies will tell you all about it during their screening and podcast. Cartopia. Dark, Sunday, Oct. 4.
This month's installment of B-Movie Bingo sets course for Spacerage, a sci-fi thrillier in career-long old man Richard Farnsworth is warden of an intergalactic prison colony that sounds a lot like an intergalactic Australia. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Willamette Week