bjork

A Week With Bjork's "Volta": Day 2

1 June 2007
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Words by Kyle Smith // Illustration by Laura Park

In the late 1970s, Andrei Tarkovsky shot his masterpiece Stalker, only to have most of the film stock destroyed due to mishandling at a Soviet lab. Rather than give up, Tarkovsky reshot the film — opinions vary on whether he was devastated at the loss of work and funds, or pleased to have the do-over — with a considerably lower budget and a refined sensibility. With all great works, we comb over the production for some additional understanding, be it supernatural happenings on the set of The Exorcist, Curtis and Cobain’s impending suicides, Pynchon or Salinger’s reclusiveness, and so forth. Stalker, a post-apocalyptic science-fiction fable about a group of men’s journey toward “The Zone,” a place where wishes can come true, is certainly one of the greatest films ever made, and I have just learned from Volta‘s liner notes that “The Dull Flame of Desire” is lifted from a Fyodor Tyutchev poem featured at the end of the film.

Well then. Trying to compute Björk and Antony’s heavenly duet was already tough — for once, his voice is beautiful first and disturbing second, rather than the other way around — and suddenly memories of watching Stalker some rainy weekend afternoon and trying to sleep that night become as immediate as the swelling brass of the song, as epic as Wagner and deafening in its tension. And, naturally, I thought of Björk’s relationship with Matthew Barney, the ex-football player (and Cremaster extraordinaire), whose own films seem obsessed with their own construction. Surely covering “The Dull Flame of Desire” is not a nod to Tarkovsky’s plight, but it pulls together Björk’s disparate influences, as well as the unique intimacy she yields. This is a song for sad, desperate nights; were it on repeat, I doubt I’d notice. But channeling another’s words, sharing it with the distracting Antony, and still making me think of her own husband and child — who is this woman?

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I couldn’t agree more with you kyle.

j | 14 June 2007

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