Yannis Kyriakides.
Un des "acteurs" des Maîtres fous.
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Le parcours de Yannis Kyriakides est pour le moins atypique. Né à Chypre en 1969, il émigre en Grande-Bretagne à l'âge de 6 ans. Plus tard, il erre durant quelque temps au Proche-Orient avec son violon avant de rentrer à l'Université de York pour étudier la musicologie. Il réside actuellement aux Pays-Bas où il a été attiré par le travail de compositeurs avant-gardistes tels que Louis Andriessen ou Dick Raaijmaakers. Il a déjà écrit plusieurs dizaines de compositions pour des ensembles de tailles diverses. Avec Isabelle Vigier et Andy Moor (The Ex), il a fondé l'excellent label Unsounds, qui a sorti nombre de disques hautement respectables, par exemple Le journaliste d'Anne James Chaton et Andy Moor, Thirteen Friendly Numbers du saxophoniste John Butcher ou a conSPIracy cantata de Kyriakides. Le travail de ce dernier est souvent basé sur l'interaction entre sonorités électroniques sensibles et jeux subtils sur des instruments. Sur le magnifique Rebetika (Seven Things, 2006, bientôt réédité en LP sur Unsounds), il improvise ainsi avec le guitariste Andy Moor en utilisant des samples de vieux enregistrements de rebétiko.
Le parcours de Yannis Kyriakides est pour le moins atypique. Né à Chypre en 1969, il émigre en Grande-Bretagne à l'âge de 6 ans. Plus tard, il erre durant quelque temps au Proche-Orient avec son violon avant de rentrer à l'Université de York pour étudier la musicologie. Il réside actuellement aux Pays-Bas où il a été attiré par le travail de compositeurs avant-gardistes tels que Louis Andriessen ou Dick Raaijmaakers. Il a déjà écrit plusieurs dizaines de compositions pour des ensembles de tailles diverses. Avec Isabelle Vigier et Andy Moor (The Ex), il a fondé l'excellent label Unsounds, qui a sorti nombre de disques hautement respectables, par exemple Le journaliste d'Anne James Chaton et Andy Moor, Thirteen Friendly Numbers du saxophoniste John Butcher ou a conSPIracy cantata de Kyriakides. Le travail de ce dernier est souvent basé sur l'interaction entre sonorités électroniques sensibles et jeux subtils sur des instruments. Sur le magnifique Rebetika (Seven Things, 2006, bientôt réédité en LP sur Unsounds), il improvise ainsi avec le guitariste Andy Moor en utilisant des samples de vieux enregistrements de rebétiko.
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Cet été, le Documentary Film Festival de Limassol (Chypre) lui a demandé de composer la musique d'un classique muet du documentaire. En raison de sa fascination pour Les maîtres fous, il préféra travailler sur ce dernier (et d'autres films du même réalisateur), malgré qu'il inclue prises de sons et commentaires. Kyriakides voulait jouer spécifiquement cette pièce à Chypre en raison du passé colonial de l'île et de l'"exorcisme du passé colonial" que l'on peut voir dans le film de Jean Rouch. Yannis Kyriakides m'a très gentiment transmis ses notes et a répondu à mes questions concernant son travail sur ce film. Celles-ci sont passionnantes et donnent un éclairage inédit sur l'oeuvre cinématographique, je les reproduis donc in extenso plus bas (Que Yannis Kyriakides en soit ici remercié !).
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Pour diverses raisons, la performance à Limassol ne doit pas être considérée comme achevée. Les explications qui suivent nous permettent de rentrer dans le processus de création et l'auto-critique qui s'en suit d'une pièce qui promet d'être hors normes. Yannis Kyriakides devrait y revenir dans le courant de l'année prochaine :
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"What happened which I was partly expecting I suppose was that the performance was quite shocking. Of course due to the film itself, but also because the soundtrack that I made, which included a lot of the original sounds - resampled and layered - and which had removed Rouch's commentary - gave the viewer no objectivity. This is in fact what I set out to do - to bring the audience slightly closer to the state of mind of the possessed dancers - but it brought up other problems. I think the audience was trapped between the perplexity of the imagery (without commentary) and the physical and emotional presence of the music. And on an intellectual level I was worried about problems such as appropriaition, political correctness, and the depiction of violence.
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In retrospect I'm glad I did it once this way - but I know that I have to find another way of approaching the film. So I'm still working on it at the moment - what I've done now is that I want to show only Rouch's commentary as a text-film or subtitiles - without images - but still use my soundtrack. This put's Rouch's voice at the center (without actually hearing his voice) - shifts the focus away from the visual depiction of the subject matter - which gives more room for the music to express the intensity of the subject matter, and more room for playfulness. It's a slightly more subtle approach, which doesn't have to be less effective. I'm planning to develop it for an instrumentalist + soundtrack + video text - where the instrumentalist is playing one instrument through the body of another. This sounds strange - but I mean something like a string instrument - say a violin - triggering through the computer - the sound of a piano (for instance) - to bring the subject of possession more into the concept of the music."
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In retrospect I'm glad I did it once this way - but I know that I have to find another way of approaching the film. So I'm still working on it at the moment - what I've done now is that I want to show only Rouch's commentary as a text-film or subtitiles - without images - but still use my soundtrack. This put's Rouch's voice at the center (without actually hearing his voice) - shifts the focus away from the visual depiction of the subject matter - which gives more room for the music to express the intensity of the subject matter, and more room for playfulness. It's a slightly more subtle approach, which doesn't have to be less effective. I'm planning to develop it for an instrumentalist + soundtrack + video text - where the instrumentalist is playing one instrument through the body of another. This sounds strange - but I mean something like a string instrument - say a violin - triggering through the computer - the sound of a piano (for instance) - to bring the subject of possession more into the concept of the music."
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Notes on Remixing Jean Rouch - by Yannis Kyriakides (2009)
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The first time I watched Les Maîtres Fous, I was struck by the apparent impossibility of imagining the state of mind of the possessed souls captured on film. One's first instinct is to laugh because it is difficult to empathize or understand the cause of the peculiar physical manifestations of the Hauka mediums being filmed. Never have I felt the limitations of film in capturing the inner world of the its subjects more acutely; yet the effect of the film is still very powerful, confusing and shocking.
The first time I watched Les Maîtres Fous, I was struck by the apparent impossibility of imagining the state of mind of the possessed souls captured on film. One's first instinct is to laugh because it is difficult to empathize or understand the cause of the peculiar physical manifestations of the Hauka mediums being filmed. Never have I felt the limitations of film in capturing the inner world of the its subjects more acutely; yet the effect of the film is still very powerful, confusing and shocking.
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One of the many things that have been said about this film is that it forces the viewer to 'de-colonize' his mind. (I like the sound of that phrase without really knowing what it means) . The viewer is forced to makes sense of the confusing images he is seeing by imagining something beyond their own 'European' mentality. Even the apparent satirization of the British colonial masters seems to have a totally different weight in the Hauka ceremony than it does in the film, and subsequently in our minds. But it's difficult to fathom that weight, only by the way it explodes in front of our eyes can we have a hint of the emotional catharsis that is at stake.
One of the many things that have been said about this film is that it forces the viewer to 'de-colonize' his mind. (I like the sound of that phrase without really knowing what it means) . The viewer is forced to makes sense of the confusing images he is seeing by imagining something beyond their own 'European' mentality. Even the apparent satirization of the British colonial masters seems to have a totally different weight in the Hauka ceremony than it does in the film, and subsequently in our minds. But it's difficult to fathom that weight, only by the way it explodes in front of our eyes can we have a hint of the emotional catharsis that is at stake.
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Other than the mystery of the possession ritual the main aspect that fascinated me by Rouch's ethnographic films was the music. Music is as often a sub-theme in Rouch's films simply because of the function musicians have in the societies and rituals he is filming. The musicians in his films seem to be mediums by which spirit possession occurs, they seem to sense the flow of spirit traffic. When the musicians play the repertory connected to that particular spirit, they are drawn to the bodies of the mediums. In all three films that I remixed, music has a pivotal role, from the colonial brass band music in Les Maîtres Fous to the funeral music of Mammy Water to the central theme of the sacred drums in Tourou et Bitti.
Other than the mystery of the possession ritual the main aspect that fascinated me by Rouch's ethnographic films was the music. Music is as often a sub-theme in Rouch's films simply because of the function musicians have in the societies and rituals he is filming. The musicians in his films seem to be mediums by which spirit possession occurs, they seem to sense the flow of spirit traffic. When the musicians play the repertory connected to that particular spirit, they are drawn to the bodies of the mediums. In all three films that I remixed, music has a pivotal role, from the colonial brass band music in Les Maîtres Fous to the funeral music of Mammy Water to the central theme of the sacred drums in Tourou et Bitti.
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Why remix and compose new music for these films ? In fact Rouch never really cared for incidental film music, in the traditional film-theatre convention. Apart from his narration, the close shot by shot commentary of what we are seeing, he used only sound recorded on location. The voiceover is a necessary convention in so far as much of what we see is baffling and the symbolic nature of the possession rituals need to be put into context. But I was curious to experience the films on a more emotional level, to come closer to the state that the 'dancers', the Hauka mediums experience. It was a desire to bridge the massive gap between our objective clinical gaze and the emotions experienced by the subject. Bringing the music to fore is a way of not necessarily understanding the film or content better but to experience it more intensely; perhaps to be more confused, to ask more questions of it.
Why remix and compose new music for these films ? In fact Rouch never really cared for incidental film music, in the traditional film-theatre convention. Apart from his narration, the close shot by shot commentary of what we are seeing, he used only sound recorded on location. The voiceover is a necessary convention in so far as much of what we see is baffling and the symbolic nature of the possession rituals need to be put into context. But I was curious to experience the films on a more emotional level, to come closer to the state that the 'dancers', the Hauka mediums experience. It was a desire to bridge the massive gap between our objective clinical gaze and the emotions experienced by the subject. Bringing the music to fore is a way of not necessarily understanding the film or content better but to experience it more intensely; perhaps to be more confused, to ask more questions of it.
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The original soundtrack was the basis that I used for the musical treatment of all three films. I wanted to keep as much as I could of the original music and voices on film. By editing out Rouch's own commentary for Mammy Water and Les Maîtres Fous, that left me with about 10% of the soundtrack. (With Tourou et Bitti I wanted to use Rouch's voice as he is very much a presence in the film, and to transform that into a musical layer). With the remaining sounds and music I layered them and transformed them creating mirror and shadow sounds from the original. I took inspiration from the way the 'spirit' replaces its 'double' in the possession ceremonies to find a way for the electronic music to transform and displace the 'real' of what we hear in the soundtrack. This discplacement of the 'real' soundtrack is a tool by which music can focus on the inner space rather than the outward one captured on film. With Les Maîtres Fous the objective was to create something with a powerful rhythmic drive, yet with all the multi-layered complexity and contradictions that the Hauka ritual suggested. The animist spirits colliding with the colonial military machine.
The original soundtrack was the basis that I used for the musical treatment of all three films. I wanted to keep as much as I could of the original music and voices on film. By editing out Rouch's own commentary for Mammy Water and Les Maîtres Fous, that left me with about 10% of the soundtrack. (With Tourou et Bitti I wanted to use Rouch's voice as he is very much a presence in the film, and to transform that into a musical layer). With the remaining sounds and music I layered them and transformed them creating mirror and shadow sounds from the original. I took inspiration from the way the 'spirit' replaces its 'double' in the possession ceremonies to find a way for the electronic music to transform and displace the 'real' of what we hear in the soundtrack. This discplacement of the 'real' soundtrack is a tool by which music can focus on the inner space rather than the outward one captured on film. With Les Maîtres Fous the objective was to create something with a powerful rhythmic drive, yet with all the multi-layered complexity and contradictions that the Hauka ritual suggested. The animist spirits colliding with the colonial military machine.
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