From the NYTimes:

“!Women Art Revolution” tells of a raucous, rule-breaking era when female artists, in order to get their message across, protested outside museums and created outlandish performance pieces often involving nudity. But the documentary is basically traditional, with a straightforward, chronological structure. It tells the stories of major figureheads in the feminist art movement like Judy Chicago, Nancy Spero and the Guerrilla Girls collective through a blend of archival footage, artist commentaries gathered by the filmmaker over 35 years and narration by Ms. Hershman Leeson.

Carrie Brownstein, the vocalist and guitarist of the now-defunct indie-rock band Sleater-Kinney, provides the soulful soundtrack.

I hereby claim !Women Art Revolution as an Oregon film on the basis of the contribution made by Oregonian Carrie Brownstein.

I first heard about Courtney Love from fellow Portlander David Chelsea, who was living in the East Village when he met her during a visit she was making to a mutual friend. This was before she had appeared in any film or made any records. Undaunted by her skimpy resume, she told him then she was going to be more famous than Madonna.

David tells me I remembered this all wrong!

Here’s his corrections: I believe she had just filmed Sid And Nancy, but it had not been released. I don’t remember her mentioning Madonna, but she did tell me she intended to become famous and have Belinda Carlisle for her best friend.

Courtney Michelle Harrison was born in San Francisco in 1964. She grew up in a commune in Marcola, Oregon, a tiny town no one ever heard of, and for which she holds no fondness. She wittily references her miserable childhood with her choice of hair accessory, above. After a brief incarceration in Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility, and multiple failed foster home placements, she moved to Portland where she hung out at Satyricon, volunteered at KBOO, attended Portland State University, and worked in strip clubs and gay clubs.

Satyricon, which no longer exists, is where she met both her future bandmate Kat Bjelland and her future husband Kurt Cobain.

Did Courtney become bigger than Madonna/Belinda? She did when it comes to the world of film. And in a strange but true coincidence, the man who guided Courtney to a 1996 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress in The People Vs. Larrry Flynt, is himself an Oregon filmmaker. Milos Forman came to Oregon in 1974 to make One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Courtney is still interested in being famous. But she has refined her attitude:

Being famous is just like being in high school. But I’m not interested in being the cheerleader. I’m not interested in being Gwen Stefani. She’s the cheerleader, and I’m out in the smoker shed. Courtney Love

Film archivist Dennis Nyback began collecting short music films to show Seattle audiences at the Rosebud Movie Palace in 1979. He fell in love with what he saw: celluloid 16mm time capsules of forgotten performers playing forgotten hits by forgotten composers. On Jan 8, 2012 at 5th Avenue Cinema, he takes off his film archivist hat and puts on his pop music historian hat to present a program inspired by Oregon Historical Society’s wonderful Oregon Rocks exhibit.

The Oregon Rocks exhibit comes down on March 4, 2012.

Before that happens, Dennis Nyback will present a supplementary program about Oregon’s first generation of pop musicians.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When George Olsen was discovered in 1922 by Fanny Brice in Portland, his hometown, he was leading his band – George Olsen and His Music – in the Multnomah Hotel. Fanny brought him to New York. His peppy, infectious arrangements supplied the soundtrack of the Jazz Age. A huge national recording star, he also made it into the movies – on the soundtracks to some of the most lavish early musicals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Del Porter followed George Olsen to Broadway, appearing in Girl Crazy in 1930 and, as one of “The Foursome” in Anything Goes in 1934.  The above clip shows The Foursome (at  4:53 – 6:18) singing and playing their trademark ocarinas. Porter is the one who plays multiple instruments.

But Porter’s real contribution to American pop culture began in 1941 when Spike Jones, the drummer for Porter’s band The Feather Merchants, took over and renamed the group Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Porter remained with the City Slickers, as composer, arranger, performer and lead vocalist. Porter was from Newburg, Oregon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of the three Oregon musicians Dennis Nyback will profile, Lee Morse is the most forgotten. She is also, paradoxically, the most prescient. Her sound, a unique amalgam of country and blues, was 40-50 years ahead of its time. Dennis Nyback, the first music historian to investigate Lee Morse as a jazz vocalist, will present a condensed version of the paper he presented on Morse at the 2010 Pacific Northwest History Conference. Lee Morse was born in Union County, Oregon.

Bottom line: If you want to learn about the musicians who pre-date Oregon Rocks, you can get a crash course on Jan. 8 at 2:00 PM at 5th Avenue Cinema

Come and get it!

Oregon Pop Machine is free and open to the public.

James Westby spent 20 days shooting Rid Of Me.

Then, into the cutting room.

Two years later he and his leading lady Katie O’Grady took the Tribecca Film Festival by storm with their comedy of a milquetoast who finally unleashes the power of her sexuality. Rid Of Me stars O’Grady, with support from (wonderful) Orianna Herrman, Storm Large, Art Alexakis, and Teresa Russell.

How do you fund an entirely independent romantic comedy? Here’s one of the ways James Westby did it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

James Westby tapped a wealth of producing talent for Rid Of Me — congratulations to all five of them – Kristin Coleman, Katie O’Grady, Robin Schiff-Coste, Raija Talus, and Westby himself – for creating a film which at least one Hollywood insider sees marked for multiple Oscar nominations.

Rid Of Me opens in theaters November 18, 2011.

I hereby claim Rid Of Me as an Oregon film, based on every qualification you can think of.

Yes, that’s Sallie “Force Of Nature” Ford on the soundtrack!

6. A Date With Judy (1948) Jane Powell

Elizabeth Taylor tries to steal all her scenes by wearing a slight mustache, but Jane Powell, Taylor’s best friend and fellow MGM starlet, is the star of this peek into America before Elvis. Powell (born Suzanne Burce) arrived in Hollywood at age 14. She would have preferred to stay in Portland, because she was looking forward to going to Grant High School, but it was not to be. Portland radio made a star out of Suzanne Burce. Joe Pasternak made a star out of Jane Powell. She made 14 features at MGM, and was the lead in all of them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. What’s Opera, Doc? (1957) Mel Blanc

“This afternoon Melvin Blank, a boy with a good voice, will sing a number of solos, accompanied on the piano by his brother.” Mel Blanc’s first write up in The Oregonian gives little indication of what was to come. Portland is where Mel Blanc learned to play the violin, the ukulele, the sousaphone and the stand up bass. Portland is where he became, at age 23, the youngest bandleader on the West Coast. Mel Blanc soaked up everything the Rose City had to offer him except a high school diploma. “I loathed school” he wrote in his autobiography. He  left in 1935 for Hollywood, where he would become the Man Of 1,000 Voices.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. Sleeping Beauty (1959) George Bruns

Here’s a music history scavenger hunt for you. Go to the Oregon Historical Society’s  Oregon Rocks exhibit and find George Bruns. He sits holding a trombone in a group photo of a 1940’s Portland jazz band. You’ll have to ID him by his signature because you have never seen his face. You have heard his music. Bruns was Oscar nominated for three of his many film scores: Sleeping Beauty 1959 (his first), Babes In Toyland (1961), and The Sword In The Stone (1963). The Ballad Of Davy Crockett , his first gig for Mr. Disney, sold more that 10 million records. That’s only a small fraction of the take generated by Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life For Me, another Bruns composition you might possibly recognize. George Bruns was born and raised in Sandy, Oregon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Don’t Look Back (1967) Derroll Adams

Born and raised in Portland, Derroll Adams dropped out of Reed to follow his banjo. A senior statesman of the 1960’s folk scene, he famously provided Bob Dylan’s introduction to his British counterpart, Donovan. Well, someone had to do it! D. A. Pennebaker was there to catch it on film. Adams remained in Europe the rest of his life, playing folk music and teaching banjo. That’s him in the foreground at the beginning of the clip.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10. Good Will Hunting (1997), Elliott Smith

Did Gus Van Sant cut Good Will Hunting in Portland? Or was he in LA, playing Elliott Smith in the editing room because he was homesick, when it slowly dawned on him  ”Hey I think we’ve got something here…..” ? The soundtrack for this odd little blockbuster about a neurotic orphan with a Robin Williams sized hole in his heart includes Angeles and Miss Misery, which was Oscar nominated.  The Dandy Warhols also show up on the soundtrack. Van Sant is himself a musician. Like Smith, he arrived in Portland during his high school years. Unlike Smith, he basically never left.

Bonus film:

Click here to view the embedded video.

11. Wildwood (2014), The Decemberists

I’m just guessing here. Laika is planning a stop motion adaptation of Colin Meloy’s and Carson Ellis’ book. They may need some music, and Colin might have some ideas about where it should come from.

================================================

Miss the first installment? The first Top Five Movies To See After Visiting Oregon Rocks can be found here.

Go find out.

When you get back, here’s some movies which feature Oregon musicians:

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Whoopee (1930) George Olsen and His Music

Born and raised in Portland, George Olsen was discovered in 1923 and brought to Broadway where he wasted no time becoming a huge star. How huge? Whoopee, an early color film and an early sound film, was such an enormous financial gamble that Samuel Goldwyn had to make sure he had a sure fire draw on the soundtrack. His solution was a one two punch: Eddie Cantor PLUS George Olsen. It is Olsen’s band you hear all throughout Whoopee.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Three Little Pigs (1933) Pinto Colvig

Pinto Colvig’s early career as a newspaper cartoonist kept getting stalled because he was prone to leaving with the circus every time it came to town. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Oregon, Pinto had his own career as an animator before going to work for Disney. He is sometimes given credit for helping write “Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?”, the song which got the country through the Great Depression. Everyone agrees that he sang it, as the voice of Practical Pig.  Like Mel Blanc, Pinto Colvig’s first identity as an artist was as a musician. He is most famous for providing the voice of Goofy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Born To Dance (1936) Del Porter

Del Porter, born and raised in Newberg, Oregon, was a singer, composer and arranger. He came to Hollywood as a member of the stupendously well behaved, ocarina playing quartet, The Foursome.   He left Hollywood as a member of Spike Jones’ musically anarchic City Slickers, whose virtuosic mashups inspired Adam Spiegel to rename himself. In the above clip, Porter is the second from the left in The Foursome behind Eleanor Powell.

I include Del Porter in this list, not because of the size of his contribution to Hollywood, because he is truly a footnote, but because of the size of Hollywood’s contribution to him. If Porter hadn’t gone to Hollywood, there would have been no City Slickers. He might have spent his entire life playing the ocarina.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Gone With The Wind (1939) Louis Kaufman

Louis Kaufman’s parents were so disoriented by the prodigious gifts of their musical son that they sent him out on a six month tour of the vaudeville circuit at age ten. They came to their senses and sent him to Julliard three years later. Kaufman moved to Los Angeles because he liked the sun, and thought he would make his living teaching violin. Hollywood had other plans for him, and you can hear him now in over 400 classic Hollywood films. That’s him playing Tara’s Theme. Louis Kaufman was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

5. There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) Johnnie Ray

Much to his own astonishment, which he does little to conceal, Johnnie Ray’s film debut took place alongside Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe, Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor. Awestruck and ill at ease, he looks exactly like what he is, a singer waiting, waiting, waiting for a chance to sing. Hollywood took note and never asked him to than play anything other than himself, ever again. Born and raised in Dallas, Oregon, Johnnie Ray crossed racial lines to embrace rhythm & blues, and in so doing paved the way to rock. A colossally original talent, Ray was deaf, and performed wearing his hearing aid.

Ernst Lubitsch hand picked Portland (born and raised) violinist Louis Kaufman to set the mood for Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in The Merry Widow. When they called Kaufman to offer him the job, he turned it down flat because he had heard that studio musicians worked long hours. They offered to pay him twice union scale, and he reconsidered.

I hereby claim The Merry Widow (1934) as an Oregon film on the basis of Louis Kaufman’s contribution on the soundtrack.

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1905 to loving but entirely non-musical parents, Louis Kaufman was spirited away to study in New York immediately following his Bar Mitzvah. He began working in Hollywood in 1934.

He was the concertmaster on so many soundtracks of so many classic Hollywood films that it is safe to say that he has been heard by what ever number best describes approximately all the people now living on earth.

His first Hollywood gig was The Merry Widow (1934). Lubitsch had heard him playing on the radio, and requested that the studio track him down. What happened next? In his words “For about fourteen years, I recorded film scores for Max Steiner,  Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgand Korngold  Victor Young, Roy Webb, Hugo  Friedhofer and others.”  Hundreds of film scores.

He balanced his Hollywood career with a career as a soloist, giving yearly recitals in both New York and LA. He championed the work of undervalued composers, and collected paintings, notably the paintings of Milton Avery.

Here’s Avery’s portrait of Kaufman:

Unbelievably prolific and universally beloved by his colleagues, Louis Kaufman died in 1994. Yes, the above photo is by Man Ray. Man Ray!

Gray H. Whaley’s brand new guide to the first five decades of European American presence in Oregon uses the Chinook concept of “Illahee” (homeland) as a counterbalance to the American concept of “Oregon”, the idea of an empty, fertile wilderness bequeathed directly to settlers by God. The title of the book,  Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee: U.S. Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792-1859, uses words which imply the erasure of Native American culture: “collapse” and “transformation”.

However, in real life, in the Oregon I live in, erasure is not the right word for what happened to the First Oregonians.

Testimony to that could be seen on stage and screen last month.

Matt McCormick originally imagined Carrie Brownstein in the role in Some Days Are Better Than Others which he eventually gave Renee Roman Nose. Roman Nose plays a woman who in the course of her work sorting donations to Goodwill discovers a funeral urn filled with the remains of a human being. McCormick didn’t write his screenplay with the goal of balancing his tiny cast racially, it just happened in the casting.

Umatilla musician and music historian Thomas Morning Owl, Jr co-wrote the stage musical The Ghosts Of Celilo with Marv Ross over a period of ten years. The Ghosts of Celilio is based on true events which occurred when The Dalles dam inundated a ten thousand year old fishing village in 1957. Morning Owl Jr has appeared in both Portland productions of The Ghosts Of Celilo, playing the heavy.

The ghosts of Celilo also haunt Chief Bromden, the character played by Tim Sampson in Portland Center Stage’s production of Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Sampson is the son of Will Sampson, the actor who made his debut playing the same role in Milos Forman’s 1975 film. Wasserman’s stage treatment preserves the centrality Ken Kesey’s novel assigned to Bromden, a bi-racial, self elected mute whose stream of consciousness narrates the action.

In Meek’s Cutoff, Rod Rondeaux plays the Cayuse Indian who crosses paths with a hopelessly lost, and perilously thirsty, wagon train. Screenwriter Jon Raymond based his script on an actual event, recorded in an 1845 pioneer diary.

All four stories – Meek’s Cutoff, Some Days Are Better Than Others, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Ghosts Of Celilo – seamlessly incorporate  European American and Native American characters. Meek’s Cutoff and The Ghosts Of Celilo were based on historic events; Some Days and Cuckoo’s Nest based on imagined ones.

Whether the events were real or imagined, all four Oregon writers – Jon Raymond, Matt McCormick, Ken Kesey and Marv Ross –  told stories set in biracial worlds, possibly because that choice most faithfully reflects the world in which they live.

When did Oregon writers start exploring the bi-culturality of our state ?

1873: Joaquin Miller writes Life Amongst The Modocs: An Unwritten History

1883: Sarah Winnemucca writes Life Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

1890: Frederick Homer Balch writes The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon

1902: Eva Emery Dye writes The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark, with Sacajawea at the center of her narrative

1940: Yellow Wolf dictates Yellow Wolf: His Own Story to Lucullus Virgil McWhorter

1960: Don Berry writes Trask

1962: Ken Kesey writes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

1983: Ron Finne directs Tamanawis Illahee: Rituals and Acts In A Landscape

1987: William Kittredge writes Owning It All

1993: Elizabeth Woody writes Seven Hands, Seven Hearts

1995: Craig Lesley writes Winterkill

1998: Chris Eyre directs Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals

2000 Marv Ross and Thomas Morning Owl, Jr begin writing & composing The Ghosts Of Celilo

2010: Matt McCormick writes & directs Some Days Are Better Than Others

2010: Jon Raymond writes Meek’s Cutoff

In Meek’s Cutoff, the wagon train has to decide whether they want to kill the one human being they have found in the desert or entrust their lives to him. Oregon literature has been grappling with the repercussions of the decisions we made ever since.

Two of these four stories deal with the damming of Celilo Falls, an event which is pictured on the front of Whaley’s new book. So maybe we add Whaley as the fifth story teller.

The above book list is not comprehensive! I am not covering all related works of art, nor all artists. Please feel free to add names/titles I have omitted.

For people who would like to know more about the books on the list — several are on Walt Curtis Recommends: Top Nine For Oregon Bookworms. Another great list can be found on the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission website.

Miranda July directed this Sleater-Kinney music video, starring Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss, during the earliest chapter of her career. Twelve years later, July’s second feature film, The Future,  is about to premiere at Sundance, while Brownstein is all over the New York Times as the writer-producer-star, with Fred Armisen,  of IFC’s new comedy series, Portlandia.

Good going, Riot Grrrls!

I hereby claim Get Up as an Oregon film, on the basis of location shooting and the Portland citizenship of every single one of the creative principals.

Oregon Movies, A to Z invented the classification “lillypadder” to describe the artists who came to Oregon in pursuit of greatness and left for the same reason. July is a classic lillypadder, a label she shares with actor Eric Bogosian, screenwriter Callie Khouri, and author John Varley, among others.