Love and Murder is the latest collaborative effort between Choreographer John Malashock and Director John Menier (UCSD-TV Arts & Humanities Producer), the creative team responsible for the Emmy Award-winning Soul of Saturday Night.
Love and Murder is a dance film about life and lifelessness--and those who hasten the process from one to the other. The highly-charged songs of Nick Cave play a leading role, along with the eight dancers who tell the stories so poignantly through movement.
News
(06/20/2005)
Press Release: UCSD-TV's "Love & Murder" Documentary Wins Three Emmy Awards
The University of California, San Diego Television (UCSD-TV) was recognized Saturday by the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with four Emmy Awards, including three awards for "Love and Murder" including Best Visual and Performing Arts Program, Editing/Other than News, and Lighting Direction. Additionally, "Love and Murder" was nominated for Photography/Other than News. Read more...
Love and Murder: A Dance for Film
Love and Murder is a sort of demented Canterbury Tales told in a hospital for the criminally insane. Set to five songs by the incomparable Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, it is a dark, driving, yet humorous trip into the heads of those whose line between fantasy and reality is so blurred that "right and wrong" is just an abstract concept.
Though Love and Murder is about violent fantasy and cruelty in the world, it is not graphic. Nor does it explicitly act out its subject matter. It is emotional and emotionless. It is bitter, but extremely funny. It is about the duality of how humans can justify almost anything as they go about the business of starring in their own lives.
The Story
The characters are inmates at a hospital for the criminally insane. In a group therapy session, they take turns "confessing" their story. We witness the recounting of their murderous exploits from their own perspective balanced by a supposedly objective, outside point of view. These perspectives are drastically different and play up the blurred lines between fantasy and reality. After each story, we return to the therapy room and shift focus to the next murderer's confession. A great deal of the work's humor is emphasized through the visual treatment and editing of the sections--and each song has a substantially different style.
The Songs
(Click on the song titles to read more and view location photos.)
Lovely Creature
This is a romanticizing of the dark, restless nature hidden deep in humans. It confuses prowling the night for a victim with embarking on a grand, exotic journey out into the world. In an industrial "graveyard," dancers repeat emotionless patterns until the "machine" breaks down and we find the characters in an exotic setting, seeking adventure. One character leads another down the shadowy path of no return, then we inter-cut to the dreary urban rooftop where the murder really took place.
Where the Wild Roses Grow
The story of two delusional lovers--each imagining they are embarking on the great journey of romantic love...
Red Right Hand
A humorous vision of criminals who aren't very good at their craft...
People Ain't No Good
A collective fantasy of the discarded and disenfranchised...
The Curse of Millhaven
Fourteen year-old Lottie is evil personified...
