*** (out of ****)
A documentary directed and written by Danny Vinik
2005
91 min NR
When I was studying at the conservatory, the Contemporary Music Ensemble would sometimes get together and play pure, solid noise in the room next to me. These were undoubtedly skilled musicians, but it’s questionable how much of their skill was required in banging out low notes on a piano, running up and down a bass, and strumming endless, dissonant chords on a electric guitar. Yet, from one room over, there was a hypnotic, droning quality to the spurting, monolithic cacophony that had an undeniable power to it.
This is what came to mind when I saw the documentary “TV Party,” which chronicles the quick rise and gradually fall of “Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party,” which ran on New York public access cable in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. No one onboard had any skills when it came to operating a television show—cameras, editing, lighting, sound—and the viewing result, in the words of “Party” regular Debbie Harry, could be “quite toxic.” It can be debated until the sun explodes if the show has any more artistic merit than my friends goofing around with a VHS camera when they were 12.
Yet “Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party”—at least the bits shown in the “TV Party” documentary—has a certain blurry, rough, unpolished, and enthusiastic charm to it, not unlike an ultra-low budget movie. Structured like a half-hour talk show, each program was a parade of unscripted, unrehearsed idiocy, ostensibly having something to do with the New York art scene and leftist politics. Pot is smoked, curse words are hurled at callers, presidential overthrows are suggested, and occasionally some no-name band proves it mettle by ramming a cogent melody through a mess of bad audio equipment.
If you can manage not to get a headache from the on-the-fly editing, you come to realize that “Party” is at least striving to be postmodern art: symbols and discernable images are rearranged and juxtaposed in a way that you may have never seen before, for the purpose of reconsidering the composite parts. In this case, it is the structure and language of television, scrambled and stripped and put back together awkwardly, very much like a grungy “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Television-subverting TV shows like “Family Guy” owe much to “Party.” David Letterman routinely called it the best show on television, and his own acidic screen persona oftentimes mirrors “Party’s” attitude.
To be fair, Blondie, The Clash, and George Clinton do show up, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat. It’s fitting that “TV Party” was screened at my town’s art museum alongside the traveling Basquiat exhibition, and not just because Basquiat is in it. If “Party’s” purpose can be questioned, it’s harder to question Basquiat’s images, which are also semiotic rearrangements, rendered raw by his absence of formal training.
“Party’s” tagline was always “a cocktail party that could turn into a political party,” but to say its cavalcade of goofballs actually took any stances or discussed policy is being charitable. Instead, the political stance is, in a way, a subtle acknowledgement of what all public access shows represent: the democratization of what is, by and large, an oligarchic medium. (Any day where I get to write a sentence like that is a good day.) Normal television shows are the voice of huge companies, not of the masses…oh, just figure it out for yourself.
The structure of the documentary is straightforward and brisk, mixing self-explanatory interviews with “Party’s” members along with clips of the show. Interviews include the show’s inexpressive host Glenn O’Brien, a magazine journalist who was inspired to start his own public access show after receiving an enormous response for appearing on someone else’s. He talks about how the editor got high and tried to change from camera to camera as fast as possible. Debbie Harry shows up, too, no longer attractive, although she should get some kind of award for staying so good looking for so long. The clips never outstay their welcome and run long enough that you get a good feel for what the show is like.
Whether “Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party” was art and politics, or just self-flagellating narcissistic New Yorkers predicting years of pointless public access, I’ll leave for another day. But I usually have fun seeing people throw themselves into questionable, crazy enterprises with gleeful abandon.
Finished Monday, December 5th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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