interview

Oh Comely loves Lucy Dacus

Photo: Dustin Condren

Photo: Dustin Condren

Lucy Dacus is a performer of substance. Her lyrics are heady with the heat and rage of teenage diaries and her live performances are whirlwinds of guitars and bittersweet words of loss, love and the day-to-day dramas of life. She’s touring the UK with her second album Historian, a lush follow up to her debut Nonbeliever. Check her out in Bristol, London and Brighton this week.

How would you compare your two albums? The first one feels like a specific time and place. I remember singing on those songs – and I'd never heard myself singing to a band before. So, what you hear is also the first time I hear myself sing to drums. We did it in, like, a day. So I had no adjustment, that was my first recording experience. It was very fresh and I guess people have responded to that. Thing is, since the writing process is so elusive to me, I can’t really pin down how it happens. Everything past that first moment of writing lyrics is intentional. Once I’ve realised the message, I can see where it came from and what it will be, but in the moment I can’t really see what it is. I like the shift of this album though, they’re kind of like, the heavier, louder songs. So just pushing people to expect something a little bit different, less sweet from me especially live shows.

Do you enjoy touring? I love touring! I love being there in the moment, the only thing I don’t love is what isn’t there – my friends and family, and my house. But love that I get to read more than when I’m home. Because when I’m home, it’s all about connecting with those people and catching up. And trying to make up for lost time and all of the disconnects that inevitably happen. But touring is one of the best parts of the job. I don’t drive, but I like the act of travelling, I like seeing new places. In fact, in Europe it's even better because it feels new, and much shorter distances. I love touring Europe because every night is a different language whereas in the US, some cities look really similar. I know I am gonna be on the road from noon to 4pm between these cities in like two months and who knows what I'm gonna do during those hours. I can fill it with the reading and no one's going to require anything from me during that time and it's built in alone time.

We’re also avid readers, what’s your current pick?  Well right now I’m reading Susan Sontag’s, Regarding The Pain of Others. She’s great, I’ll read literally anything she’s written. I bought it yesterday at this place called Broadway Books. It’s so great, I bought five books. Why is it that British editions of books are better looking than the US editions? Why do you guys just have better taste? But I think what has influenced me a lot when writing this album is Anna Karenina, it has these two character who are grappling with life and death. I love characters, poetry and watching movies, these things all help me. I think external things help you to each inside.

What kind of child were you? Very dreamy. I was kind of too creative for my own good. My parents had a rule when I was young, that I could never say that I was bored. They taught me that the word bored was like a curse word. Like the equivalent to legitimate curse words so I had to find ways to not be bored because I would be punished by having to draw. They’d be like; "you can’t be bored, sit in the corner and draw your favourite animal." Which is hilarious punishment within itself. And I still feel that I don’t get bored, ever.

How do you feel about giving a lot of yourself? You’re writing about you, your life and real relationships. When I'm writing, I'm not giving myself to somebody else I’m just giving it. What I'm saying is what I am saying to myself. And that is step one, is to give yourself to yourself. That’s the most important thing and beyond that, sharing it is separate. I think it was more of a pull from the community that I grew up in. Asking me to play shows. I had friends in bands who just wanted to hear it. It actually took people telling me, like ‘you should do this, I want to hear it.’ And that’s why I think children’s programmes are so important like creative programmes that say; ‘what you make matters’.

What advice would you give to young women who want to be sitting in your seat right now? I don’t want to say anything too cheesy but don’t get caught fulfilling other people's dreams. I've had to learn recently that a lot of people want to do music and a lot of people want to be in the limelight and just want an audience and think they know what that looks like and what that feels like. Your journey is different to anyone else’s and also if it's your work, it's your work. Don’t be bugged down by industry people or your own band. Especially men, but people in general: don’t let people live out their wildest wet dream of being a rockstar on your belt. I've dealt with that a couple times over now. I’ve had conversations with people asking what going on or asking for change and then if people can’t break out of their expectations then you can’t carry that weight around and I can’t so specifically if I’m talking to ladies, that’s my advice.

Give Lucy a follow on Instagram, @lucydacus.

Todd Haynes

 

After three decades of directing actresses including Cate Blanchett and Julianne Moore in their defining roles, Todd Haynes finds himself amazed by deaf 14-year-old Millicent Simmonds

Portrait of Todd by Ellie Smith

Portrait of Todd by Ellie Smith

Todd Haynes has been living in the past for some time. Each of his films – from Velvet Goldmine to I'm Not There to the sublime Carol – has been set in earlier periods and made using cinematic techniques from those eras. His most recent film Wonderstruck splits its time between pasts, telling an intertwined story of two deaf children in the 1920s and 1970s as they each run away from home and experience New York's frenzied enchantment.

Wonderstruck nods towards silent movies and 1970s American cinema. Are you interested in capturing something about how the world was at certain points, or is it more what older films tell us? It varies. Speaking through the prism of film language is sometimes exclusively, almost academically what I'm trying to do: Far From Heaven was set in the late 1950s and was about what those films said about their own time through the artificial language of Technicolor melodramas. Wonderstruck is a little different in that I was thinking about the kids' subjectivity. I felt a messiness in the 1970s. You see images of children from that time and their hair is in their face! Particularly there was a sense of the tactile in their creative interests. I think of Wonderstruck as what they're making with their hands. It feels handmade in that way, and going back and forth between the stories it's almost like pieces of a puzzle being pressed together by little dirty fingers. My films are always interpretations of cultural themes, stories, characters, real people, cinema. I never feel like I'm inventing new ideas, nor is that my intention – I'm just commenting on the culture as it exists and recombining components. I'm curating my films, maybe, much like these kids explore the idea of museum curating.

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Is there a kinship between the job of film director and museum curator? You both locate different things, put them together and find the relationships between them. Absolutely. You're not just curating themes and references and in my case historical moments – selecting what is relevant from your research and films and popular culture – you're also putting together creative partnerships. Actors, cinematographers, costume designers, all of those elements are selected yet also have an autonomy. You may guide them but ultimately as a director you're letting something out of your control happen, and that's also the thing you want to capture, to let it in.

Until now you've collaborated mostly with adults, but much of the film is on the shoulders of Millicent Simmonds, a deaf 14-year-old. Did that affect how you worked? Every actor is different anyway. They bring their own personality, temperament, and in the case of professionals, their own training and approach to their work. The cliché that directing is really about casting is true: it's selecting that right person and providing them with confidence so they can take risks and do things that neither of you knew were possible. I know I have good instincts and I'm surrounded by people whose opinions I trust, but I've also been very lucky. With Millie there were unknowns on top of unknowns, but we followed our instincts and met this extraordinary kid. She has an understanding of the camera and the medium that you can't teach, that you can't direct out of anybody. I'm not sure how she knows just the right amount of information to express, or even what she looks like when she's performing. How many of us really know what we look like as we talk and emote? And she's a kid! It's a weird thing. Julianne Moore, who has that same understanding of the scale of the medium, would look at Millie on set and say wow, there's something remarkable here.

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There are few deaf characters in cinema, let alone stories about deaf people. Do you feel that in losing dialogue you also gain something in those complications of communication? It asks the audience, who will mostly be hearing viewers, to supplement information, to imagine what it's like to be without hearing but also to interpret things in ways they're not usually asked to. When I was 12, The Miracle Worker became a point of obsession for me. I know it was about Helen Keller as a phenomenon but it made me think about language. Initially she represents a rejection of social norms and law and language, a wilful postponing of entering the codes and terms of a society. That's fascinating when you're young. I think kids feel an affinity for deafness and blindness, for limits and novel ways of improvising how to communicate and express yourself. Limited abilities and freedoms and constraints are built into their status – they get it.

Wonderstruck is in UK cinemas 6 April 2018

 

Women with tattoos

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portrait eleni stefanou, Women with Tattoos

People are drawn to tattoos for different reasons – because they find them beautiful, empowering, therapeutic or a tangible way of holding on to important memories. Eleni Stefanou is taking photos of women and their ink, and sharing their stories on a blog as a visual love letter to tattooed women everywhere

 

Jay Rose, 23, tattoo artist, Glasgow

“Some people think of tattoos a ‘second skin’, but I find that concept quite strange. The minute a tattoo is on my skin it becomes a part of me and I often find it hard to remember what it was like to not have it. Looking back at old photos is becoming increasingly weird, especially since I’ve become more heavily covered. For me, getting tattooed isn’t simply about decoration – every tattoo I have means something. That’s not to say tattoos without meaning are anything less, but for me each tattoo is marking a journey and allowing me to become more secure within myself. I have tattoos with friends, for family and inside jokes.

“It was getting my stomach, hand and back tattooed that were the biggest steps in really bringing my vision to life, they were turning points for me. Those were the big tattoos that started to really frame my body and connect the dots if you will. I felt myself become so more comfortable in my own body after that.

“With every tattoo you collect, you also step into a journey with your chosen artist. You put your trust in them. For example, I chose tattoo artist Hannah Pixie Snowdon to tattoo my entire back. I am a rather small human being and it was important for my back piece to be worn – and not for it to wear me. Its evolution has been both a representation of my growth as an individual and Hannah’s growth as an artist – it was the first back piece she ever created. As for physically getting it done, I squirmed, cried, winced and in parts it has become my worst nightmare come to life.

“I am a tattoo artist myself, and I’ve had a lot of emotional experiences on my artistic journey. The other week, for example, a lovely woman had emailed me wanting a tattoo with a little nod to her mother who had recently passed away. Her mother had been diagnosed with bowel cancer and doctors had discovered a brain tumour within the same week. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in September last year and it’s been a hard journey, so this is something that struck home. She was a really lovely girl who had been through something that I could empathise with.

“And that, for me, is what makes tattoos so powerful and healing. They can unite people through shared experience and allow someone to mark a tragedy in their life and then recover from it.”

 

Read four more stories of women and their tattoos in issue 39 of Oh Comely. 

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