1
Whiplash and the art of motorcycle maintenance
A friend in graduate school at Northwestern during the late 90's and early 00's spent some of his free time working for the college radio station. On occasion, he had the opportunity to interview one of the alternative artists as they would appear in the Chicago metro area. One such artist (Neko Case) not only had performed on stage multiple times during his stint on radio but also had a mutual who regularly hosted parties and they bumped in to each other a few times in this context as well. When Ms. Case was headlining the music stage at the local summer arts festival, I expressed to my friend how much I enjoyed her music and hoped to catch her performance. Surprisingly, my friend had no such warm and fuzzy feelings towards the alt-country singer. He recounted that both as an interview subject and as a person in a personal setting, she was not at all interested in discussing music or seemingly anything else with anyone who was not a fellow musician.
This anecdote may not paint Neko Case is the most positive light but her solo music remains magnificent and her vocals with Vancouver's New Pornographers are among the finest to be recorded in the last thirty years. This retelling is not so much about her and her shortcomings as a human being but as a relief upon which to discuss musicians and music in general and art and what's it, y'know music and art, all for? What's so great about it?
In "Glass Heart", Satoh Takeru's main character, Fujitani Naoki, is a genius. Viewers know this not only because viewers see him extemporaneously turn a simple melody in to a Mozart-level composition, but also because every character around him says at every opportunity that he's a genius. The first part of that is enough. The second part gets a bit tiresome. Nevertheless, Naoki is a genius and recruits fellow aces of guitar, keyboard and drums to form his new band. To the extent that "Glass Heart" succeeds, it's thanks to the perfect casting of Machida Keita as the stoic and aloof-on-the-surface guitarist and Miyazaki Yu's ferociously unhinged musical sequences on the drumkit. And the camera work and editing for said musical sequences are legitimately stunning.
But the plot is wafer-thin and meanders in-and-out of Naoki's troubles which never really create any emotional impact because Naoki himself doesn't seem to feel anything other than a compulsion to write more songs, perform once in a while and have somewhat robotic interactions with people who have either supported or antagonized him. Had any of the bandmates showed some exasperation with Naoki like any normal human being would have, it would have added some badly needed connection with how things usually operate here on Planet Earth. And Naoki is exasperating. As a positive, he's somewhat mercurially amusing as this easily distracted, stream of consciousness creator. But he's also sporting some pretty toxic and unhealthy traits that get the "it's ok because he's a genius" treatment.
Further, Saijo is a confounding character. While playing the drums, she's an absolute mastodon. When she puts the drumsticks down, she's a mouse. This character needed to be more mastodon. Much much more mastodon.
Where "Glass Heart" really falters is that it very explicitly wants to express why music is so great and important and how this musical genius' creativity is so wonderful. And it's not at all convincing.
The primary issue is that it's all entirely inward-looking. This wonderful thing that Naoki does is generally accomplished with him in some sort of trance where he's wholly unaware of his surroundings or attempts by his bandmates to communicate with him. The big transformative experience by the members of Tenblank is their realization that their performance as a band IS how they live and that their lives without their shared musical exploits are less meaningful.
Which is great.
For them. The musicians.
But music that is only meaningful for the musicians is just a series of notes and words strung together. "Glass Heart" makes some glancing attempts to involve other characters but it's the half-brother from a rival band (musician), a manager who wanted to be a singer (musician), a sinister record exec who's background is a songwriter (musician) and a messy idol-style singer (musician). None of them nor any audience member or anyone have any impact on what "Glass Heart" proclaims as its message. To be clear, it's great that the creators enjoy their process and are fulfilled in their pursuits. But to "Glass Heart" that's the end of it. Music for the musician. It's enough to be the tree in the zen proverb of the tree falling in the forest when no one is around. Hint: that's not all it's supposed to be.
For those that are interested, "Inside Llewyn Davis" is a master class on a musician discovering fulfillment in his art.
As for "Glass Heart", it's fine as an extremely long form music video but isn't much of anything else.
This anecdote may not paint Neko Case is the most positive light but her solo music remains magnificent and her vocals with Vancouver's New Pornographers are among the finest to be recorded in the last thirty years. This retelling is not so much about her and her shortcomings as a human being but as a relief upon which to discuss musicians and music in general and art and what's it, y'know music and art, all for? What's so great about it?
In "Glass Heart", Satoh Takeru's main character, Fujitani Naoki, is a genius. Viewers know this not only because viewers see him extemporaneously turn a simple melody in to a Mozart-level composition, but also because every character around him says at every opportunity that he's a genius. The first part of that is enough. The second part gets a bit tiresome. Nevertheless, Naoki is a genius and recruits fellow aces of guitar, keyboard and drums to form his new band. To the extent that "Glass Heart" succeeds, it's thanks to the perfect casting of Machida Keita as the stoic and aloof-on-the-surface guitarist and Miyazaki Yu's ferociously unhinged musical sequences on the drumkit. And the camera work and editing for said musical sequences are legitimately stunning.
But the plot is wafer-thin and meanders in-and-out of Naoki's troubles which never really create any emotional impact because Naoki himself doesn't seem to feel anything other than a compulsion to write more songs, perform once in a while and have somewhat robotic interactions with people who have either supported or antagonized him. Had any of the bandmates showed some exasperation with Naoki like any normal human being would have, it would have added some badly needed connection with how things usually operate here on Planet Earth. And Naoki is exasperating. As a positive, he's somewhat mercurially amusing as this easily distracted, stream of consciousness creator. But he's also sporting some pretty toxic and unhealthy traits that get the "it's ok because he's a genius" treatment.
Further, Saijo is a confounding character. While playing the drums, she's an absolute mastodon. When she puts the drumsticks down, she's a mouse. This character needed to be more mastodon. Much much more mastodon.
Where "Glass Heart" really falters is that it very explicitly wants to express why music is so great and important and how this musical genius' creativity is so wonderful. And it's not at all convincing.
The primary issue is that it's all entirely inward-looking. This wonderful thing that Naoki does is generally accomplished with him in some sort of trance where he's wholly unaware of his surroundings or attempts by his bandmates to communicate with him. The big transformative experience by the members of Tenblank is their realization that their performance as a band IS how they live and that their lives without their shared musical exploits are less meaningful.
Which is great.
For them. The musicians.
But music that is only meaningful for the musicians is just a series of notes and words strung together. "Glass Heart" makes some glancing attempts to involve other characters but it's the half-brother from a rival band (musician), a manager who wanted to be a singer (musician), a sinister record exec who's background is a songwriter (musician) and a messy idol-style singer (musician). None of them nor any audience member or anyone have any impact on what "Glass Heart" proclaims as its message. To be clear, it's great that the creators enjoy their process and are fulfilled in their pursuits. But to "Glass Heart" that's the end of it. Music for the musician. It's enough to be the tree in the zen proverb of the tree falling in the forest when no one is around. Hint: that's not all it's supposed to be.
For those that are interested, "Inside Llewyn Davis" is a master class on a musician discovering fulfillment in his art.
As for "Glass Heart", it's fine as an extremely long form music video but isn't much of anything else.
Was this review helpful to you?
