Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "No More Workhorse Blues": Reviewed by Davis Rivera

In his 2004 short film “No More Workhorse Blues,” commissioned for the artist Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, writer/director Harmony Korine attempts and succeeds in telling a bizarre story while putting an indirect focus on the abstract qualities of the film images by exploring one particular technical aspect of film, stop motion. Korine made this film in the hope of administering a deeper sense of patience in his audience by strictly relying on the power of images, but in a redefining way. Watching Korine’s entire body of work before coming to what I consider his masterpiece, I always felt that he was attempting to portray himself as a convoluted expressionist; something I always admired and tried to remember before viewing his work. The thing is, he is right in thinking of himself in such a way; he is a man with a hundred different ideas, all of them bad. In his work with the notorious photographer/filmmaker Larry Clark, the rawness of Clark’s aesthetic pasted Korine’s vision amongst the pages of Thrasher and the repellent empty-headedness of Ed Templeton’s pieces. This was clear even before the completed cut was made available of Clark’s still unreleased in the United States, “Ken Park,” featuring a script by Korine. His two feature-lengths, “Gummo” and “julien donkey-boy,” are perfect examples of the sum of a film’s parts being better than the whole. Individual shots found in the film are frequently sensational, but not frequent enough to add up to much. “No More Workhorse Blues,” however, is a skillful avant-garde film completely realized, inspired, and, at the time, destined to bring back a fascination in experimental and difficult films that has been lacking for decades. Korine manages to match the multifaceted richness of the song with a juggernaut of a film. A sweet dystopian universe, simultaneously intensely delicious and to the same degree, inducing a certain nausea.

The film begins without any hesitation of what it is determined to be. There is a shot of a man with over-sized dollar bill glasses holding a tennis racket in front of him while a racquet ball seemingly floats in the air above it and a lethargic painted woman with a white wig and dress is embraced by the man’s arm. Every shot in the entire film is stop motion and each isolated image appears on the screen for about five seconds before moving on to the next one. This kind of scrutiny was familiar to me having seen Korine’s previous work but never before has he ever attempted to smash the conventional qualities of a film so ruthlessly without presenting any proper guide to the viewer to help them reassemble the pieces. One of the most startling sequences in the film occurs a few seconds later as the painted woman is depicted as the one holding the racquet while the ball lays fallen on the floor. Her arms are arched in an almost Diskobolos-like formation and one is reminded of Korine’s earlier short film “Sunday,” featuring a team of ballerinas. Seconds after the arched dance is completed, a blurred image of the painted woman is seen, made all the more apparent due to the racquetball court she is in being completely white. There is a sense of trepidation in her eyes as Korine cuts to a shot of the man in the glasses approaching her from behind. Due to the repetition found in this sequence, the viewer is allowed to stop and think without the interference of other characters, and acquire certain thoughts. Namely, a sense of uneasiness at the abstract images appearing on screen in unbelievably saturated colors creating a sense of looking at the characters through a foggy piece of glass that has been positioned to constantly project a glare into the viewer’s eyes.

Whether an image means the same thing to viewers when it is paired with an unlikely soundtrack is an important thing to consider when the viewer gets about thirty seconds into the film. Will Oldham (the real name of the man behind Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy), in his clear, countrified voice sings, “I am in stitches, I am laughing at you,” as the painted woman appears to attempt to teach the man in glasses to properly serve the ball. These interspersing images are contrasted with various shots of the man apparently in a rage, bringing to mind the controversy over the March 2008 cover of “Vogue” magazine featuring LeBron James and Giselle Bündchen. Though just as the viewer is inspired to one thought, Korine jump cuts to a shot of the two characters embracing each other. Once this is finished we are once again projected to the beginning image of the woman teaching the man how to serve and we follow a disjointed pattern culminating in the man with his arms outstretched and apparently screaming, in an almost artfully lit shot fading into the bleached out mise-en-scene. Bringing the viewer back into a mode of thinking, Korine presents a shot of the painted woman eating a Popsicle in an extreme close-up shot. The alert viewer will, at this moment, overhear Oldham sing, “I held my own for you, Where is my tongue?” as the shot cuts to a high-angled long shot of the woman holding a bouquet of roses next to a lawn full of rubbish. Here, Oldham’s lyrics serve as a powerful indicator of mood and a turning point in the direction of the film, also made aware by the shot’s mise-en-scene no longer making use of bleach bypass printing. The first usage of saturated color, though still predominately pale of hue, combined with the striking image of the painted woman holding roses next to a disgusting lawn, while remembering the line, “I held my own for you,” all add up to a moment that captures the essence of the song’s beauty without having a character say one line of dialogue.

Korine is so adept at the usage of stop motion that he almost brings a certain element of practicality to the film once the wedding scene begins. Many have compared Korine’s film to “La Jetée,” by the French filmmaker Chris Marker, but this is an unfair distinction. Marker is innovative in his use of still photographs and voice-over as the two central elements of his film, but Korine, having no voice-over and only the words of someone else to work with, is the greater revolutionary simply for not allowing these obstacles to overcome his vision the way his younger and less experienced self permitted Larry Clark to do.

Not content to let the viewer become comfortable with the way the film is progressing, Korine follows the bouquet-holding bride for, thus far, the longest sequence in the film and stops with an unfamiliar technique not yet used. The woman’s face is contorted to drift in a circular pattern while her wide gaze is fixated off-screen to create an alarming eyeline match. Korine makes the spatial relationship clear to the audience and guides the viewer through the woman’s thought process as he cuts to a medium shot of the man from earlier, shirtless and atop a ceramic horse, addressing the title of the film. The woman attempts to get onto one of the horses but the shirtless man, no longer wearing the dollar bill glasses either, does not attempt to help her. Instead, he flexes for the camera as a long road is seen behind him. The experience of seeing this shot is, undoubtedly, troubling for some in an attempt to make sense of what Korine is trying to get across to his viewer, but this shot in particular struck me as the closest to creating a cohesive moment in summating the painted woman’s role in the film. As I mentioned before, directly behind the man is a road but even closer to the man is the second horse seen in the previous shot as the woman attempted to sit on it. Though she is no longer in the shot at all, Korine does make a noticeable attempt to get it in the shot by shifting the camera lens to the left, placing the horse at an important focal point in the background barely visible due to the man’s swelling biceps. As we look past the horse and see the road, we’re reminded of Oldham’s two-line delivery at the beginning of the song, heard while the woman taught the man how to serve, “What is this road here? Where have I come?” This kind of synchronization, once again, assures Korine’s genius at breaking boundaries by bringing in the exact opposite of what an avant-garde film is known to feature: a character that we can sympathize with.

If the viewer has stayed with Korine this long, he offers a reward by bringing in a third character, an elderly man with a dog held by a leash, seen in a medium shot. The man is hunched over but is smiling at something off-screen. In another great use of the eyeline match, the painted woman is now seen apparently dancing by him, while he unassumingly stands by not paying attention to her at all. Instead, he raises his right hand in a gesture similar to one hailing a taxi. Korine cuts to a close-up shot of the old man and, in contrast with the previous image we have of him, he is now frowning while the painted woman’s hand is seen approaching his shoulder in an ominous way. No harm was intended, however, as we see her now petting the man’s dog as he embraces it in a loving way. Shortly after, she attempts to get his attention, to no avail, as he again resumes his original position of a man hailing a taxi. The sequence ends with an extreme long shot of the woman seen through two interlocking branches. This jumble of discordant images seems frustrating, but then, if you stay with it, a pattern soon emerges from the jumble as the next scene depressingly proves. Oldham’s music, at this moment of the film, has been raised to an almost unbearable volume as he screams out (with the help of a haunting background singer), “I am no more workhorse,” over and over. While this is heard, the woman, now alone, lights a cigarette in a close-up and appears unusually tall compared to the tree standing behind her. Korine now shows the woman in an extreme long shot standing on a bucket with a rope around her neck. Having already determined the emotional intensity of the scene by way of the song, Korine lets the actress play out her fate as she eventually hangs herself and dies alone with a beautiful white home in the background, contrasting violently with the garbage-strewn house seen earlier while she held her bouquet of roses. Paying homage to the man responsible for the ethereal song heard throughout the film, Korine cuts to Oldham sitting in an easy chair, wearing an orange jumpsuit, as the lyrics proclaim, “I am your favorite horse, I am your favorite horse.” This scene is duly important, as it is the only time in the entire film that Korine does not use stop motion. Oldham looks blandly into the camera, smiles, and Korine cuts the film to black, not bothering to add any credits at all, perhaps as a gesture to his former days as a Dogme 95 member.

Whether the man with the dog was meant to be her uninterested father or the man with the glasses was meant to be her fiancée, Korine never informs the viewer but, by crafting this story while putting an indirect focus on the abstract qualities of the film images by exploring one particular technical aspect of film, stop motion, Korine has more than fulfilled his goal in making a film in the hope of administering a deeper sense of patience in his audience by strictly relying on the power of images. He also succeeds in creating a thought-provoking sensual and aesthetic experience while simultaneously making, undoubtedly, conventionally beautiful images and a main character with depth rich enough to carry an entire film. By not obeying the rules of narrative form, Korine has evoked sympathy rather than scorn. One should want to help expand this increasingly discarded genre of filmmaking, not destroy it. A paradox, considering that is exactly what Korine has spent his entire career doing.