I Demand To Know Who Built This Pig.

 

 

 You may have seen this substantially meme-ified pig before, in its original untouched-up form. Online reactions to the film have been understandably strong but, beyond the fact that it's a 1907 Pathé recording of an old vaudeville act, I can't find much information about what it is I'm actually seeing. Who was the act? How was it being done? What would a cross section of Le Cochon Danseur look like, for example? How many people would we find? Just the one costumed actor, moving his arms in and out of the trotters to swivel the eyeballs? A little child sitting on the main player's shoulders to operate the head bits separately? How does it all look so coordinated?

 

 The dancing pig is shamed.

  

 And how successful was the act? Because, if it was successful, why have I never seen any contemporary imitations? Why would we not see this level of articulation in a puppet again until "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"? If Vaudeville could come up with something this impressive in 1907, why would a Master of Cinema like Fritz Lang, the creator of Metropolis, have such difficulty building a convincing dragon nearly twenty years later? If I was Lang I'd have gone "Get me the dancing pig people, STAT!" Or maybe he did. Maybe they built this dragon too, but it wasn't as good. Who built this pig!

 

 

(Okay, now I've looked it out, it's better than I remember, but it's still no dancing pig.)

 I have a question too about the technology used to clean this clip up – less about the wherewithal, and more about its effect. I assume it's some kind of rougher, off-the-peg version of whatever Ai Peter Jackson used to clean up the Beatles footage in "Get Back". A few other youtube clips suggested by my algorithm use the same tech. Here's the first I saw...

 

 My old workplace, the Trocadero, and the next time I was there I took a photograph, to compare the two...

 

 Because, when I watch these clips I feel – as I felt watching "Get Back" – that I'm somehow being transported in time, and then I have to check why, because documentaries aren't new, and film has been around for long enough for me not to be surprised by it. That's my question.

 

 So I've decided, it's not that the retouching makes footage look more realistic, but that it makes it less immeditaely familiar as "footage", and so the brain reads it more literally. One can – rightly – condemn the artificiality of this, if what's intended is the creation of a more accurate record. But what this technology reminds me is that, from its inception, film has never been just a record, it is also a genuine marvel. 

 

My Gruelling Journey To Find A Good George Harrison Music Video

  Here's what happened: My brain had gone from thinking about The Lady From Shanghai to remembering the existence of Shanghai Surprise – that Madonna and Sean Penn film nobody saw – so I decided to look up a trailer for it, and found out that George Harrison the Beatle had written the film's score and that there was a music video for it, so I decided to start watching that, and I say start watching because it was... well, it was subtitled for a start, so I can give you a taste:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was here, just as Harrison sang "hot for me like tofu" that I paused the video to check how much more was left. Guess...

 

 

 Three minutes. 

 I'd already watched two. 

 This was a five minute long song. My sweet lord. Isn't it a pity? I'm not going to post the whole thing but if you want you can find it here. (There is one good bit where Vicki Brown sings "You must be crazy. And you got no money. And you're a liar." I like that lyric.) Anyway, next to that video was a thumbnail for something called Crackerbox Palace courtesy of George Harrison's own youtube channel...

 

(Does anyone know who owns Dummy Princess Margaret these days – not that I fancy her?) 

 

 I'd never heard of Crackerbox Palace, and it turns out I don't really know Harrison's solo stuff as well as I thought, so I decided to check the channel out, beginning with this sketchy, star-studded (not filled, just studded) phantasmagoria... 

 

 

 

 I'd assumed any video would come as a relief after Shanghai Surprise, but uninterrupted peace did not descend upon me as I watched this. I definitely wanted to share it though: It's shorter than Magical Mystery Tour, and grittier than Zardoz. And doesn't George smile like David Byrne? But now I wanted to find a video I could genuinely love, I wanted that peace. (Why not just listen to the songs, Simon? Shush.) 

 So, next up I watched the video to This Song which had a similarly Carollian and unironed look, but was set in a courtroom, here, and I began to be reminded of early Madness videos, which made me realise what I'd been missing: fun. I wasn't sharing the fun. 

 Next up... Of course! I'd completely forgotten about the seven-minute long video put out to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of My Sweet Lord!

 

 

 

 Rewatching it I remembered why. Yes, it has Fred Armisen in it. And John Hamm! And Nate's Natalie Palamides! (Oh man, I keep meaning to post about Nate.) But all these celebrities and clowns, they don't... they're just in it... they don't... It was like Crackerbox Palace all over again, except the video had nothing to with the song. Was this for charity? 

 It really looked like George Harrison's music videos and I were just never going to be friends. There is a happy ending however. A video had also been put out to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Isn't It A Pity? and that's what I watched next, and last. I love cartoons. Peace descended. Journey's end. Hot tofu forgot. This is really lovely. Thank you, George.