In Pairings, artists and creators pick the movies that complement their latest work.
Sam Sodomsky is a writer, senior editor at Pitchfork, and musician known as The Bird Calls. His new album Take Leave is out on August 28 wherever you get your music!
We asked Sam to pick a few movies that pair well with Take Leave. Here’s what he wrote about them.
Rocky
Such an iconic film that it’s easy to forget how quiet the whole thing is. Without even a hint of irony, it plays as an inverse to the typical sports story. Victory means something different here. I love the way it earns our trust by establishing a setting, sustaining an atmosphere, walking us through all the little details that these characters may never slow down enough to notice again.
Rocky II
What does it mean to have a calling? To repeat ourselves helplessly in pursuit of past triumphs? I appreciate the meta quality of Sly reprising this role after the surprise success of the first film. Where do you go next? When Rocky says “I think I’m becoming nobody again,” is he referring to his drift from the spotlight or the overpowering urge to return?
Rocky III
I’m interested in stories about the way ambition changes as we get older. Death happens in this film. A rival becomes a friend, bonded by the intimacy of a charged, combative history. You see a statue erected in your honor, hurl your motorcycle helmet at it, and witness the nature of our legacies: rigid and immutable. You pity the fool. To feel the pain is a blessing; may we feel it every day.
Rocky IV
Watching this movie in my youth, I was hypnotized by its depiction of the brutal Russian wilderness, which was actually filmed in Wyoming. Maybe subconsciously back then I started aspiring to make art that captured the feeling of a long training montage amid silent, snowy expanses. The character of Rocky seems to interpret this journey as being about our capacity to change, but I’d argue it’s more about embracing your true nature, even if it kills you.
Rushmore
My childhood dream: to invent an identity, to be taken seriously, to immerse myself in art ideas and see them realized on stages. It is not a coincidence that I started The Bird Calls one summer as a young boy when I was watching this movie every day. It’s struck me on recent viewings that Herman Blume’s reaction at the aquarium is how these pursuits tend to play out in the adult world. “What the hell am I doing here?” Blume asks, listing the wasted resources as proof of his delusion. Max Fischer responds as any dreamer must: “And that’s all you’re prepared to spend?”
