authors: ONE TAKE NEW YORK for THE TAKE AWAY SHOWS from LA BLOGOTHEQUE
duration: 05:12
Exactly one year ago Vincent Moon started THE TAKE AWAY SHOWS as part of the French weblog Blogotheque. Moon’s idea was sweet and simple:
“You meet a band. You take them outside, in the streets, and ask them to play there, shoot the movie in one unique shot, whatever happens… Every week, we give away a session, shot with a band, in an unusual, urban environment. Sessions are always filmed as a unique shot, without any cut, recorded live. We usually haven’t much time to record them, so the groups have to be spontaneous, to improvise, play with what they have with them, and with their environment, whether there’s a public or not.”
About a week ago a great spin-off launched: ONE TAKE NEW YORK, made by Ben Cramer, David Sampliner and Hope Hall, a young NYC based documentary filmmaker. Their first recording is just mesmerizing: Tom Brosseau, a folksinger gifted with a bewitching voice, performing the traditional bluegrass song Darling Corey in a very large and noisy barber shop. As Hope Hall writes:
“One of the things we like best about Tom and his music is how sincerely a throwback he is. He dresses and acts the part of a guy from a small town and a bygone age but he’s not winking at it or us. He means it. That’s why we loved the idea of plunking him down Joe Buck-like in the middle of mod Manhattan amid all its aggressive cacophony and hipster posing to see how his gentle, very unhip presence would fare…
In Astor Hair, the idea was to let Tom stroll about the place, sure that his angelic singing and playing would eventually turn every shaved and mohawked head his way, at the very least to see why there was a guy in cowboy boots singing a country song in the middle of a barber shop. We let the owner know what we were up to, but no one else was in on it, so we were sure we’d rigged a surprise that would provoke a response. Not to be — the thing we like best about what happened is the last thing we would have predicted. Once Tom started playing, virtually no one seemed to pay him or us any mind. It’s just his lonesome voice alongside the din of barbershop activity, each oblivious to the other, like he was a ghost only we (and the camera) could see.”
Permalink to the original posting: CLICK HERE
The Take Away Shows (English): CLICK HERE
Les Concerts A Emporter (French): CLICK HERE
One Take New York: CLICK HERE
Tom Brosseau’s website: CLICK HERE
Hope Halls’s website: CLICK HERE
Subscribe to The Take Away Show (English): CLICK HERE
Subscribe to The Take Away Show (French): CLICK HERE
