It's Sandro, about the Biennale

An old favorite

Welcome, or welcome back, and thank you, as ever, for either subscribing to, reading, or sharing word of this newsletter, which continues to contain zero actual news to speak of. I launched it on January 1, 2022—real New Year’s Resolution stuff—and it’s already proved to be a fun space to share various thoughts and ideas with no editorial or time pressure. I hope you’ve derived just as much pleasure from it as I do.

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As ever, I’d like to begin with a quick recommendation: The People’s Account (1987), a fifty-minute video directed by Milton Bryan and made collectively by Ceddo Film and Video Collective (among whose founder members included the sadly late filmmaker Menelik Shabazz.) Made in the aftermath of the Broadwater Farm disturbances of 1985, The People’s Account is a raw and disturbing examination of justified anger in Britain’s Black community, and an expose of outrageous and systemic racism within the Metropolitan police. As I wrote for Sight & Sound Magazine:

Unsurprisingly, The People’s Account, which charges the police with “terrorist raids against Black communities”, ran foul of the censors. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (which had to give its approval before films could be shown on British television), in tandem with Channel 4, demanded editorial changes, which Ceddo flatly refused. It was yanked from the schedules, and, like Blacks Britannica before it, never shown on British TV.

You can watch The People’s Account for free online at London Community Video Archive’s Vimeo channel. For more on the video, I recommend this piece at Frieze by the excellent art critic Rianna Jade Parker, which provides much thoughtful social and artistic context.

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There’s no way to adroitly pivot from the above to what follows, so I’m just going to dive right in.

A couple newsletters ago I wrote about Mark Cousins’ interview series Scene by Scene, which I’ve continued to watch on YouTube. This week I caught Cousins’ 2001 episode with Jeff Bridges, which culminates in a discussion about the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998), in which Bridges, of course, plays Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski. I’ve probably watched The Big Lebowski more than any other film over the years, and I suspect I’m not alone in that. It’s a total balm. And I think what keeps me coming back is the film’s truly unparalleled array of completely indelible minor characters, from supporting roles to characters who pop up for seconds and have barely any lines.

Yes, The Dude is great. John Goodman’s Walter is arguably the iconic blowhard of American cinema. And who can forget poor old Donny (Steve Buscemi), the meek mouse of a man who winds up as dust in The Dude’s goatee? (By the way, there’s a great 20th anniversary roundtable discussion with the three actors who reflect on the film and their experiences making it.)

But beyond these three? At this point, I’m going to give myself a break on the writing and let the images do the talking:

And I’ve even had to chop a couple because the email was too long (apologies to the thugs who steal The Dude’s rug, the performance art landlord, and the furious sheriff who throws a mug at The Dude’s head.) Anyway, just looking at these images makes me laugh, and all the pungent, absurd dialogue from the respective scenes rings in my head like an old friend. I’m grateful that this film exists. It’s a total masterpiece, and a real one-off (in both the Coens’ oeuvre, and American cinema in general.) I’m probably going to stick it on again now.

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Thank you for reading. See you next time.