JOE SACCO

Joe Sacco is a journalist and artist who creates graphic novels based on his own experiences in various areas of conflict in the world. His work is totally unique. Sacco is like a photojournalist who goes into a hot zone, but instead of taking photographs of the situation he creates cartoons and writes the text based on his interviews and interactions with the people in the conflict.

He has a black-and-white pen-and-ink style, that is bold, clear, and incredibly detailed. He does take photographs, and makes sketches and notes as reference for his images. There is an R. Crumb quality to the drawing, and I'm sure Maus by Art Spiegleman and American Splendor by Harvey Pekar were major influences, but Sacco has created his own comic book genre. His work is serious and educational about society and politics, tells both uplifting and tragic stories with great emotional impact, while still containing an element of humor.

Sacco was born in Malta, but eventually came to America and lived in LA and studied journalism at the University of Oregon. Sacco had various jobs and started a satirical, alternative comics magazine in Portland, but he desired to travel and use his writing and drawing skills to create works that were hard-hitting and could make a difference.

Starting in 1988, he chronicled his travels through Europe in his autobiographical comic Yahoo. In 1991, his travels led him closer to the Gulf War and he started to make references to it in his work. 

This led him into a study of Middle Eastern politics, and he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research PALESTINE which would be his first major long-form work. It was made up of both long and short pieces and serialized as a comic book from 1993-1995 and then published as a collection in 1996 winning the American Book Award.

PALESTINE is based on Sacco's experiences in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s. The book emphasizes the history and plight of the Palestinian people. It is presented chronologically from his arrival to his departure, but flashes back to historical events in the conflict. PALESTINE details the everyday life in the occupied territories, presenting the struggles, humiliations, and frustrations of the Palestinians. Most of the scenes are presented as conversations between Sacco and the people he encounters. Sacco is the principle narrator, but at times steps aside and allows the characters to tell their own stories without interpretation. Most of the panels are presented as a side view of the situation, but there are others that present the scene from Sacco's point of view, and still others that take a bird's eye view over places like refugee camps and images of Jerusalem.

Sacco does not position himself as a neutral observer, instead he accepts his role as a westerner going into the Middle East and concentrates on his personal experience in the situation. His goal is to document, but he cannot help but participate and comment on the demonstrations, funerals, roadblocks, and encounters with soldiers that he has. Towards the end of the book he shares food and lodgings with the Palestinians that he meets and even breaks curfew with them while in the Gaza Strip. Although he does have some encounters with Israelis, Sacco admits that he hasn't reflected enough on the Israeli point of view and it would require another trip to present that side of the story. 

Sacco's next project came out of his travels to Sarajevo and Gorazde near the end of the Bosnian War. SAFE AREA GORAZDE, THE FIXER, and WAR'S END all came out of these experiences.

SAFE AREA GORAZDE (2000) is based on Sacco's 4 month experience in Bosnia during 1994-1995. He combines the oral histories of the subjects he interviews with his own observations on the conditions and his own feelings about being in one of the most dangerous places on earth. The book covers the complex history of the conflict as well as documenting the atrocities of ethnic cleansing that take place. The narrative unfolds through the stories of various Bosnians including Edin, a graduate student who was studying engineering in Sarajevo before the breakout of the war.

THE FIXER (2003) centers around a Sarajevan man who having lost everything in the war, sells his stories to Western journalists. Sacco returned to Bosnia in 2001, looking for the only person who still seemed to want to talk frankly about the madness into which the country had descended a few years before. Neven is a hard-drinking army vet, known as The Fixer for his ability to arrange anything for the right price. Sacco and the unreliable Neven take us back through the Balkan nightmare.

WAR'S END (2005) contains two stories - Christmas with Karadzic, about tracking down and meeting the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, and Soba, about a popular Sarajevan man who fights against the Serbs.

In 2009, Sacco published FOOTNOTES IN GAZA, which is not a sequel to PALESTINE, but constructed around two forgotten incidents - the 1956 mass killings of Palestinians in Rafah and Khan Younis. The book is huge and digs deep, exploring the relationship of past and present and memory and experience. Sacco shows how elusive memory and testimony can be and the way stories solidify over time.

Sacco has also contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to various magazines and publications. In 2005 he wrote and drew two eight-page comics depicting the events in Iraq for The Guardian. He also produced a 16-page piece in Harper's Magazine in 2007, entitled Down! Up! You're In The Iraqi Army Now. He also was a frequent illustrator for American Splendor and did the cover for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

The Battleship Potemkin (1925) is a masterpiece of early cinema and one of the greatest films of all time. It was directed by Sergei Eisenstein who was a major figure in the development of film language with his emphasis on montage which used an editing technique of quick cutting between shots to establish an emotional impact on the viewer.

The film presents the story of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime.

The film is composed of five episodes:

1) Men and Maggots, in which the sailors protest having to eat rotten meat.

2) Drama on the Deck, in which the sailors mutiny, but their leader, Vakulinchuk is killed.

3) A Dead Man Calls for Justice, in which Vakulinchuk's body is mourned over by the people of Odessa.

4) The Odessa Staircase, in which the Tsarist soldiers massacre the people of Odessa.

5) The Rendez-Vous with a Squadron, in which the squadron who is supposed to stop the Potemkin declines to do so and cheers on the rebellious battleship.

The Odessa Steps sequence is one of the most powerful scenes in the history of cinema. The Tsar's Cossacks march down a seemingly endless flight of steps in a machine-like fashion firing into the crowds. The victims include the family of an old woman, a young boy with his mother, a young schoolgirl, and a woman pushing a baby carriage. As she falls to the ground the carriage moves away rolling down the steps with the baby inside in the middle of the chaos. This scene also includes the famous close-up of the woman screaming as she is shot in the eye through her glasses. Eisenstein uses his montage technique here to its full effect creating a stunning sequence of great emotional depth. The scene was fictionalized, but based on news reports that the soldiers had fired on the people.

Eisenstein's first full-length film was Strike (1924) and depicts a strike in 1903 by workers in a pre-revolutionary Russian factory. The film is famous for a sequence near the end where Eisenstein cross-cuts the violent suppression of the strike with images of cows being slaughtered. A major theme of Strike and Potemkin is collectivism where the characters work together to make changes in a social and/or political structure.

October (1927) celebrated the 1917 October Revolution and was influenced by John Reed's book Then Days That Shook The World.

All of these early silent, black and white works were propaganda films, but also were important in establishing a film language that used montage as a visual story-telling device to create thought and emotion in the viewer.

In 1930, Eisenstein travelled to Mexico to work on a project with the American socialist  writer Upton Sinclair. The film was never completed because of political and monetary problems, although some of the footage would eventually be released in other forms. During his stay in Mexico, Eisenstein met Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

In 1938, Eisenstein made Alexander Nevsky which was a historical drama depicting the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by the Polish people, who were led by Prince Alexander, popularly known as Alexander Nevsky. 

The film was made during the Stalinist era, when the Soviet Union was at odds with Nazi Germany and the film contains obvious overtones that refer to the relationship of the two countries. The film is less experimental in its narrative structure than the earlier films. It tells one story with a single narrative arc and focuses on one main character. 

Sergei Prokofiev composed the score for the film and collaborated with Eisenstein in the editing process, resulting in a match of music and imagery that set a standard for films that followed.

Ivan The Terrible was the final project of Eisenstein. It was slated to be a trilogy, but only two parts were released. Part 1 came out in 1944, but Part 2 wasn't released until 1958 due to political censorship. Part 3 was being shot when Eisenstein died in 1948.

The film presents Ivan as a national hero, as Stalin admired him as a brilliant, decisive, and successful leader. In Part 2, Ivan is depicted less as a hero, and as a man who uses murder to impose his will. This depiction lead to its censorship. After Eisenstein's death, all of the footage from the third film was confiscated and for the most part destroyed.

In the narrative of Ivan, Eisenstein experimented with form and color and used shadows extensively in the symbolism of the film. 

Eisenstein was the father of montage and wrote two books - Film Form and Film Sense, that explain the significance of montage in detail. The Battleship Potemkin was a major influence on many films that would come after, and also on the 20th century British painter Francis Bacon.

TULSA

I was born in Rochester, New York in 1956, where my mother was from. As a baby my father landed a job teaching at the University of Tulsa. So I spent most of the first  23 years of my life living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

I attended art school at TU from 1974 -1978 and it was at this time that I heard of the book TULSA by the photographer Larry Clark. The book had been published in 1971 and had a controversial reputation as an underground classic, but it had gone out of print. When I went to graduate school at Ohio University in 1981, I discovered a slide library of the whole book and it gave me a chance to take a look at all of the images. When I moved to New York in 1984, I found a newly released second edition in a bookstore in the Village that was signed by Clark. Being the romantic that I was at that time, I gave it to a girlfriend who was a photographer at OU. Several years later another edition was made and I finally obtained my own copy.

TULSA was published by Lustrum Press in 1971. The images in the book were taken in three periods between 1963 and 1971. It used the documentary style and narrative sequencing of a Life magazine photo essay with stunning intimacy and an intense emotional power. Clark took photographs of friends and the people he hung out with depicting scenes of young people having sex, shooting up drugs, and messing around with guns, and moves through the themes of addiction, abuse, and death. The graphic and controversial subject matter created a subjective autobiography of Clark's life.

Clark didn't take the photographs from the outside as a voyeur, but as a participant in the situations. He did drugs with the other characters in the book, slept with them, and included himself in the photographs. Some reviewers saw this as innovative and honest, while others criticized it for exploiting the dark aspect of the subjects lives. Clark focused on the subculture that he was a part of and in the end created a harrowing and powerful portrait of the evolution from youth to young adulthood.

The book is made up of around 50 black and white images and Clark used bleach and a lot of burning and dodging in the darkroom to create the stark, high contrast photographs.

A young man sits on a bed holding a gun on the cover. After the title page the book opens with black text on white.

i was born in tulsa, oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but i've gone back through the years. once the needle goes in it never comes out. 

L.C.

Next comes an intro to the characters David Roper and Billy Mann in 1963, followed by 4 other images of young men. In all of the shots the subjects are framed by shadows, mirrors, broken glass, and rain-smeared car windows. Their faces fall into the shadows.

This is followed by three shots of Roper. One in a house with Jesus on the wall, and two others show him with a hunting rifle in nature where he seems to still be alive and innocent. 

The next few pages shows people shooting drugs and depicts the anguish starting to enter their lives. Then we see Roper shooting up and his transition begins. There are images of the women in their lives and a stunning image of a downview of a young man (Billy Mann) in bed smoking with a baby staring into the camera. On the other page the mother looks worn out. Under her picture it reads "dead." 

There are also frames of motion picture film montaged into single images of drug taking, popping veins, and men arguing.

The next page reads: death is more perfect than life

Across is the cover image of the young man (Billy Mann) with the gun and underneath the photo it reads "dead 1970"

Now it is 1971 and we see a changed David Roper no longer innocent. Long hair, cigarettes, racist notes for the hated cops, an American flag behind him pointing a gun. Another man with a gun who accidentally shoots himself. The women are abused by the men. Another powerful photo of Roper putting a spike into the arm of a young woman.

And then against a white page a young pregnant woman shooting up. Another white page and we're at a funeral. Another white page and we see the baby dead in the coffin. This sequence of beautiful yet disturbing images is mystical and at the same time a punch in the gut.

Next a police informer gets his ass kicked. "Every time I see you punk you are going to get the same."

Then we see Clark high and shooting up with younger people as if this way of life is being passed down to the young followers.

Tulsa is a harrowing book of images depicting a world of aimless, addicted, and lost souls. It set the groundwork for the subjective, autobiographical work that would follow by such photographers as Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, and Ryan McGinley.

Twelve years later Clark released his second book Teenage Lust that was also largely autobiographical, but not in a conventional sense. It includes early family photos, his move to New York City, a quest for a utopian hippie life in New Mexico, and concludes with a series of portraits of young male hustlers in Times Square. It is more experimental and explicit than Tulsa. There is also text in the book written by Clark that details his life including his incarceration at Mcalester State Prison in Oklahoma in the 70s. In both Tulsa and Teenage Lust there is an obsession with the care-free and self-destructive aspect of the teen years and young adulthood. This theme would continue through Clark's work in film as well.

Clark's first major film was Kids that was released in 1995. The film centers around a day in the life of a group of NY teens who have an unrestrained approach to sex and drug abuse in the age of AIDS. It was the first film for the actresses Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, and was written by Harmony Korine. 

Next came Another Day In Paradise (1998) which was a bigger Hollywood production and starred James Woods and Melanie Griffith. The film is about a young couple who are taken in by an older couple into a world of drugs, crime, and violence. Both films have great images in a hand-held moving in and out of focus style, and a great use of music.

Bully came out in 2001, and is based on a true story about a group of kids in Florida who murder one of their own because he is an asshole. It is full of Clark's trademark themes of the destructive quality of the dysfunctional family, male identity and the roots of violence, mass media's influence on social behavior, and the construction of identity and sexuality in adolescence.

Ken Park was made in 2002 is more sexually and violently graphic film than Kids, and includes a scene of autoerotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by supposedly underage characters. The film revolves around  the abusive home lives of several teenage skateboarders and their friends. It too was written by Harmony Korine and co-directed with the great cinematographer Ed Lachman. Ken Park is a difficult film to see in the US because of its controversial content.

Larry Clark continues to make films and have gallery exhibitions. He was given a major retrospective at the International Center of Photography in 2005.

THE ROLLING STONES

After the Beatles hit America on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, the next band that made a huge impact was The Rolling Stones. They had a rawer and tougher look than the Beatles and were influenced by primitive blues typified by Chess Records' artists such as Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. 

The Rolling Stones consisted of Mick Jagger on vocals and harmonica, Keith Richards on guitar, Brian Jones on various instruments, Bill Wyman on bass, and Charlie Watts on drums.

They developed a sound that was gritty and hard-driving but their early work was mostly covers of songs written by their influences. The Stones first single was a cover of Chuck Berry's Come On that was released in June 1963. Their second single was I Wanna Be Your Man penned by Lennon and McCartney. The third single released was Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. 

Their early albums The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones 2, The Rolling Stones Now!, and 12 x 5 were excellent collections of these covers of dirty blues. Their manager and producer Andrew Oldham felt they needed to write their own songs as well and so Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, along with Brian Jones started to do so. The first single released that was penned by Jagger and Richards was Heart of Stone which was backed by their song What A Shame. Their first number 1 hit that they wrote was The Last Time which came out in February 1965.

The song that really vaulted them into the limelight was the international hit (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction which was recorded in May 1965. It appeared on the album Out of Our Heads which contained six songs written by Jagger and Richards including the excellent ballad Play With Fire. Satisfaction is one of the greatest rock songs ever and is known for Richard's fuzzbox guitar riff that makes it sound like a saxophone. 

Over the next several years the Stones would produce their finest work. The next release in America was the album December's Children. This album contained the hit Get Off of My Cloud and the ballad As Tears Go By.

Aftermath was released in 1966, and was the Stones first album where all of the songs were written by the band and further defined the group as rock & roll's bad boys. The album had some excellent songs that also pushed the boundaries of what the band was doing musically. Brian Jones made some interesting contributions by adding sitar to the Middle Eastern influenced Paint It Black, dulcimer on the ballad Lady Jane, and a wonderful use of the marimbas on Under My Thumb. Aftermath is also notable for the 11 minute extended jam Goin' Home.

1966 was a major year for the Stones with the release of the singles 19th Nervous Breakdown and Mother's Little Helper which addressed the abuse of prescription drugs. Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? also came out in 1966 and was the first Stones release to feature brass horns.

Between The Buttons came out in 1967 and the US version included the singles Let's Spend The Night Together and Ruby Tuesday. When the band played Let's Spend The Night Together on Ed Sullivan the lyrics had to be changed to Let's Spend Some Time Together.

Jagger, Richards, and Jones started to be hounded by authorities over their drug use in 1967 leading to charges being filed against Jagger and Richards after the raid of a party at Richard's home. Jones' house was also raided and he was charged with possession of cannabis. Also during this period while awaiting trial the three of them took a trip to Morocco accompanied by Marianne Faithful and Jones' girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. Jones and Pallenberg were having trouble and Pallenberg ended up leaving with Richards which led to a long-term relationship between them, but also created a huge divide between Richards and Jones.

Their Satanic Majesties Request came out in December 1967 and was the Stones psychedelic album closely following Sgt. Pepper's by The Beatles. The cover was photographed by the same photographer, Michael Cooper, who did the Beatles groundbreaking work. The album used inventive arrangements which incorporated African rhythms, Mellotrons, and full orchestration. It included the notable songs She's A Rainbow and 2000 Light Years From Home.

In 1968, The Stones started working on their next material and the single Jumpin' Jack Flash was released. Later that year the album Beggar's Banquet came out and included the songs Street Fightin' Man and Sympathy For The Devil. Richards remarked about the dark and angry quality of the album saying he was sick of all the Maharishi guru shit and beads and bells and the music was a reaction with a strong dose of reality. His stint in jail had given him room for thought.

The end of 1968 saw the filming of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus featuring John Lennon, Yoko Ono, The Who, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithfull and Taj Mahal. The footage wasn't released until 1996.

Brian Jones had become increasingly troubled and wasn't making much of a contribution to the band. His drug use had become a hindrance and he wasn't able to go on the road, so the band decided to cut him loose - he could say he left but could come back when he was ready. He was replaced by Mick Taylor who was only 20 years old at the time. Less than a month later Jones was found dead in his swimming pool at his home in Sussex.

The Stones were scheduled to play a concert in Hyde Park on the next day and decided to go through with it as a tribute to Jones. It was their first performance with Mick Taylor and was before 250,000 people. It also featured the first live performance of Honky Tonk Women.

Let It Bleed came out in 1969 and is probably my favorite Rolling Stones album. It included the monumental track Gimme Shelter which packs a huge emotional impact. The album also includes You Can't Always Get What You Want and Midnight Rambler as well as a cover of Robert Johnson's  Love In Vain.

Many of the songs from Let It Bleed were performed on the 1969 US tour which culminated with the Altamont concert that had the Hells Angels providing security and resulted in the stabbing and beating death of Meredith Hunter. Part of the tour and the concert were documented by the Maysles Brother's film Gimme Shelter and also lead to a release of the excellent live album Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! in 1970.

Sticky Fingers came out in 1971, and was the first Stones record on their own label. It included many great songs including Brown Sugar, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, and the country influenced Wild Horses and Dead Flowers. The cover of the jeans and zipper was designed by Andy Warhol.

Following the release of Sticky Fingers the Stones left England for financial and tax reasons and moved to the south of France. Richards rented a villa and rented rooms to band members and entourage and they started recording in the basement. These sessions resulted in what I feel is their last great album Exile On Main Street. Exile was a double album and returned to a more blues based raw sound and was littered with killer tunes including Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Tumbling Dice, and Stop Breaking Down.

Mick Taylor left after a couple more albums and was replaced by Ron Wood. The Stones released several other albums over the years and still play live periodically. While the later work is not as strong as the period from the 60s to the early 70s, they still produced some excellent songs, including Angie, Heartbreaker, Shattered, Start Me Up, and Waiting For a Friend.

The Rolling Stones impact on rock music is impossible to measure. They assimilated various musical genres into their own collective sound. They incorporated blues, r&b, country, folk, reggae, dance, and world music into their work, but mostly they created a hard-driving blues based music that had a great power and influence on all rock and roll music that would follow.