AntiCurrent.com Video Archives Vol 6: Screamin' Jay Hawkins- I Put a Spell on Me

Screamin' Jay Hawkins

One of the few things that Tom Waits, Alice Cooper, Gwar, The Cramps, and Rob Zombie all have in common is that they were all heavily inspired by the music and theatricality of Screamin' Jay Hawkins. The music and persona of the man can be best explained as one part refined RnB musician, one part Bela Lugosi, and one part pure guttural opera. In the course of his career, the man broke damn near every stereotype of a musician. Though you may not know his name, you undoubtedly know his song "I Put a Spell on You", made popular by bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Animals. Though the song was an enormous hit in many versions since it's initial release in 1956, bad record-deals and contracts between him and a white dominated industry meant little of the money actually went to the man himself.

However, that didn't stop him. Though he did often have to play in less than stellar venues throughout his career, he toured consistently until the age of 70 years old. His live performances were as much theatricality as they were musicality. He would emerge from a coffin and periodically fumble through his bag of toys, dolls, and bones. But the coolest prop of all was Henry. Henry was a skull on a stick that he had rigged to smoke cigarettes, and he went everywhere with him. Many black musicians from his day went out of their way to avoid racist stereotypes such as voodooism, cannibalism, or even the slight mention of a jungle. Screamin' Jay however, wholeheartedly embraced them. So much so he often performed with a bone in his nose.

I Put a Spell on Me

Jarmusch

The man only started to get the respect he deserved towards the end of his life thanks to people like Jim Jarmusch who heavily featured both the man and his music in feature movies. Thankfully, on what ended up being his last tour, filmmaker Nicholas Triandafyllidis accompanied him through part of it. Not only did this result in the capture of his last ever performance, but he was able to document some incredibly intimate moments with the man while traveling. We watch Jay regale the camera with tales of Elvis, his skirt-chasing, and eating thirty plums for Mystery Train, all the while in taxi cabs, hotel rooms, and airplanes. This is the kind of raw, genius footage that truly captures a singular moment in time.

The cast of characters interviewed for this project are astounding. We get to watch Jim Jarmusch speak about searching out Jay to personally pay him for use of his song in a movie. We witness Bo Diddley talk about Jay being one of the first to notice that Elvis was copying black musicians. Many of his friends and family retell some of his personal stories including his getting shot and stabbed when he hit on his wife's girlfriend.

Hawkins

The documentary is rough around the edges. Shot on multiple types of cameras, occasionally the footage looks completely different, even during the same interview. Throughout it, the discrepancy in quality is often jarring and unwelcome (such as the noise in the wide-shot of Jarmusch's interview). Often times the audio is of equally poor quality. However, this is true documentary cinema and has more heart than anything professionals such as Alex Gibney have ever shot. Most modern documentarians concentrate more on presenting a brilliant luster on top of their movie than showcasing the raw emotion laying beneath it. Living in a day where many major documentaries now have the budget of actual movies, this is a breath of fresh air.

Triandafyllidis

Unfortunately, director Nicholas Triandafyllidis died on June 7, 2016 in Athens, Greece. His film I Put a Spell on Me won the First Prize in the Documentary Festival of Thessaloniki and the Second National Prize Documentary Film Festival in Thessaloniki under the Film Ministry of Culture Quality Awards. The man went on to make many more movies before his untimely demise. His latest film 90 Years of PAOK: Nostalgia for the Future about Greece's multi-sports club is currently in post-production. 

This Release

The original release of this seemed to be extremely limited and quickly went out of print (though you can still buy a bootleg version of this from Asia) as soon as it was made available. It is unclear why this is, but I would assume it largely to have to do with Screamin' Jay's estate not owning the rights to his music, this however, is pure speculation on my part. For years, the only way to watch this film has been either a terrible quality 360p YouTube video or a poorly encoded two part AVI file that has long been dispersed throughout the torrent community.

A few weeks ago I managed to get my hands on a ripped DVD* of the actual release. However, even it had issues such as interlacing and dancing tracking lines atop the footage. To remedy this I ripped the original 576i, 25FPS footage and up-res'd it to 720p. From there I de-interlaced it, cropped off the top to remove the dancing pixels and added a slight sharpening filter to it. I briefly attempted to "snap the blacks" as some of the footage was washed out, but noticed I was losing too much information in the shadows and left it as is.

*Note The only bonus feature included on this disc is a trailer for the movie

Final Thought:

I cleaned this up as much as possible, however there is only so much I can do without access to the original footage. Some shots are noisy and occasionally the audio is barely decipherable. However this is an amazing documentary about an amazing subject and made with that rare kind of love and reverence that is seldom reflected in cinema. If you like this release, purchase his music, purchase his live albums. My personal favorite recording is a three track single made for a Levi's commercial which features his interpretation of the Tom Waits' classic "Heart Attack & Vine" as well as his classic "I Put a Spell on You" and the amazing track "On The Job".

AntiCurrent Video Archives Vol 5: William S. Burroughs- The Junky's Christmas

Old Bull Lee

William S. Burroughs:
There are only a few select writers on the planet that I would rather listen to than read, and William S. Burroughs is among that group. Even though you unmistakably hear his voice when you're reading, there's something magical about the old man's flat tone and creaking, crotchety voice that adds a layer of ambiance that augments his written word so perfectly. Though his voice did age like a fine whiskey, he was born an old soul who Kerouac described as "...a gray, nondescript-looking fellow you wouldn't notice on the street unless you looked closer and saw his mad, bony skull..." Burroughs was only 43 years old when that description of him was published in 1957's On The Road.

Spare Ass Annie

The best capture (or at least my favorite) of his unmistakable voice was on the 1993 album, Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales. On it, he recorded many of his short stories from miscellaneous books through the years put to a backing tracks by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. One of the most notable of these tracks was "The Junky's Christmas", a short story from his 1989 book Interzone. The story is all about a junky named Danny who is released from jail on Christmas day and is attempting to find his fix. After searching the entire city, he dupes a doctor and gets a small dose via a pill. As he returns to a hotel to shoot up, he instead discovers a kid going through kidney stones in agony and shoots him up instead. It's a beautifully twisted little story about choosing humanity over your own addictions.

Junky's Christmas Short Film:

Cover

The story combined with music and Burroughs' amazing narration was so brilliant in fact that Zoetrope Pictures (Francis Ford Coppola's company) and VH1 teamed up to turn it into a narrative, short film. The film was done as claymation with live action bookends where Burroughs pulls Interzone off the shelf and effectively reads you the tale on Christmas day with his friends and family. It was aired on VH1 (presumably as part of a Christmas lineup) and was eventually released via Koch Vision in 2006 on a long out-of-print DVD.

The problem with the DVD release is that it sucks. The claymation footage is presented as interlaced and in the wrong aspect ratio. This is unfortunately a normal result of mixed media presentations on DVD. It's hard to say exactly who's fault this is, but generally it results when the disc image is being designed immediately before being delivered to the factory. Additionally there are sections where Danny's collar has a moire effect going on due to the crosshatching on his coat. This is more than likely accentuated due to the project being edited on tape rather than on film.

This Release:

So in order to fix this, I downloaded an ISO, disc-image capture of the film from the ever-amazing Uncle Jerk (who's post about this movie is the reason I'm writing this blog, thanks Jerk!). I popped it into Premiere CC, upscaled it and cut the movie apart from it's live action bits. I deinterlaced the claymation, stretched it out from its wrong aspect ratio into the correct 4:3 dimension. To remove the moire effect I desaturated all sections of the movie that didn't have color, and I snapped the blacks to a reasonable number in order to remove some of the DVD's digital artifacts. This is likely the best version that will ever be made available unless the original authors return to the original tape captures of the material.

*If you have a keen eye, you may notice that the claymation footage still has ghosting (blended frames) but after experimenting with several different frame rates to attempt to solve the problem, I consulted my friend Ian about it. After reviewing the credits at the end (which will show you if the image is skipping, repeating, or blending frames), it is undeniable that this project was created with them as either purposeful, or that they are baked in and cannot be removed without very tedious work.

Final Thought:

Amazing Claymation Work

If you dig this little gem, go and buy the album "Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales" because it's pure gold. Also, if you dug this (I don't know how widely available it is for purchase), grab Burroughs' audio-book of "Junky", you won't regret it. The point is, this isn't meant to compete with being able to purchase an artist's work, merely to make available things that are rare or out-of-print that should be experienced by anyone that loves his work. Either stream it from YouTube, or download it at the link provided below in h265 (be sure to be running the latest version of a decent player like VLC).

So here you go, one of the best holiday specials ever made for those of us a little off that beaten path. Enjoy!


h265 link (Right Click, Save As)

*EDIT* 

The cinematographer of this project, Simon Higgins, was kind enough to write in (see below in the comments) and add to the available information about this wonderful project! Thanks!

I was the cinematographer on the claymation component of this project. You've done a pretty decent job of restoring it. Great to see it looking like the original after so many years.

It was shot on Bolex cameras colour standard 16mm Kodak film stock, aka (7298) 100ASA, in the late spring/summer of Sydney,Australia 1993. The production design was almost entirely monochrome and the remaining colour was removed in the film to tape (telecine).

It was mastered on PAL video, that's just 576 pixels tall at a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and I guess that's what probably got transferred to VHS and eventually to DVD. A 16mm film print was also struck from the PAL video master and it toured the world film festival circuit for quite a few years and was lucky enough to attract some critical acclaim.