We get the sense that Wendy and Lucy have seen plenty of mornings like this one, grey and unwelcoming, attended by the giggly gawking of passing teenagers and the by-the-book hectoring of local cops. The first thing Wendy does after tumbling out of the backseat is to open the trunk and retrieve a plastic dish and a big bag of kibble.Īs shot by Reichardt in a patient, fixed take, this makeshift breakfast has the distinct ring of a ritual. And so does her aforementioned dog, Lucy (played by Reichardt’s own dog Lucy, who was also in Old Joy). Reviewers have generally referred to Wendy as a “drifter,” and while the word has some unsavory connotations, it’s apt enough-she lives out of her car and sleeps wherever she parks.
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is very much the departing kind: as the film opens, she’s en route to Alaska to work in a cannery (“they need people there,” insists one of the campfire revelers), and her notebook contains the names of the various small towns she’s passed through along the way (as well as the precise amounts of money spent in each location). The story quiets the rest of the circle, providing a cue for the spooked newcomer in their midst to take her leave, with her dog in tow. Perhaps for the sake of continuity, her follow-up, Wendy and Lucy, also features Oldham speaking in front of a campfire somewhere in Cascadia, but in lieu of some humble night-school string theory, his character-the rowdiest member of a hippie cabal making merry in the woods-tells a rambling, increasingly unsettling story about his misadventures as a forklift operator. In Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy (2005) a character played by the singer-songwriter Will Oldham sits in front of a campfire in the wilds of Oregon and expounds on his ideas about the shape of the universe. Oldham is in unusually strong form on Songs of Love and Horror his control of his instrument is more evident than it has ever been in his days as a recording artist, and his phrasing is straightforward but with a dramatic flair that only adds to the emotional gravity of "I See a Darkness," "Ohio River Boat Song," and "So Far and Here We Are," as well as adding a greater compassion to "Only Someone Running," and even bringing a warm, nostalgic tone to "Party with Marty (Abstract Blues)." Songs of Love and Horror is hardly the only album that shows just how fine a singer Oldham can be when he wants, but it is an admirably strong effort that should please fans and intrigue dabblers.Dir Kelly Reichardt, US, Oscilloscope Laboratories
Oldham often sounded mannered on his earlier work, as he was trying to inhabit the persona he fashioned on his Palace releases, but these interpretations are stripped of affect, and the minimal accompaniment allows one to hear every whispered, quiet moment of his performances in the studio. As a companion to the book, Oldham also released an album called Songs of Love and Horror, in which he performed spare, solo acoustic versions of 11 songs from his back catalog, as well as a cover of Richard & Linda Thompson's "Strange Affair." In some respects, this album feels a bit redundant, since Oldham has recorded all of these songs before (except for the Thompson cover, of course), but if this doesn't add anything in the way of new material to Oldham's catalog, if you want evidence of how he's matured as a vocalist since his earliest days, this is well worth a listen. To honor the occasion, Oldham published a book, Songs of Love and Horror, that featured lyrics to over 200 of his songs, as well as annotations from the tunesmith.
2018 marked the 25th anniversary of Will Oldham's first release as Palace Brothers, the initial salvo in what has been a prolific and truly eclectic body of work, much of it released under the handle Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
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