Köln 75: The Making of the Hit ECM Live Album

ECM Records is known as an incredibly artist-friendly label. The Köln Concert is a major reason why they can afford to be so supportive. Keith Jarrett was well known for his previous releases and his sideman recordings with Miles Davis, but few A&R execs would have recognized the double live album’s commercial potential. Yet, it became the best-selling solo jazz album of all time and a perennial catalog seller for ECM. There were no standards, no arrangements, no sidemen, and no pre-planning. It was just Jarrett freely improvising on the piano. That might sound simple, but the events leading up to the solo concert are quite chaotic in director-screenwriter Ido Fluk’s mostly fact-based Köln 75, which opens today in New York.

Initially, Fluk’s film largely follows Vera Brandes, a German teenager who becomes an unlikely jazz promoter. Frankly, she and her friend Isa seem like rather shallow leftwing activists, but at least they like jazz. However, British tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott finds Brandes rather charming. However, instead of anything untoward, the old gent propositions her to book a German tour for him, because he couldn’t imagine anyone “saying no” to her. Of course, old Ronnie’s instincts prove as sharp as ever.

Soon, Brandes is secretly running a considerable jazz promotion business, at the inevitable expense of her high school studies. She even hires her deadbeat older brother, to keep him from tattling to their emotionally abusive parents. However, she maybe bites off more than she can chew when she books the Köln Opera House, at great personal out-of-pocket expense, for a solo Keith Jarrett concert.

The film really gets going when it shifts its focus to Jarrett, as he suffers through a series of European engagements with his record producer, Eicher, who is also acting as a de facto manager. John Magaro is shockingly good portraying Jarrett, capturing his cerebral intellect, eccentric prickliness, spiritual depth, and the taxing physical pain he suffered. Instead of playing jazz cliché hopscotch, he really humanizes and embodies Jarrett’s artistry and anxieties.

It is also very cool to see Eicher getting his due credit and significant screentime in the film. Alexander Scheer’s quietly sympathetic portrayal makes it easy to understand why artists who sign with Eicher stay with ECM for years or even decades. Plus, Michael Chernus really elevates the fictional (but true-in-spirit) jazz journalist Michael Watts. He also archly delivers several of Fluk’s tongue-in-cheek jazz lessons, while nicely serving as a foil to open Jarrett up for audiences.

Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer

Editors and literary agents always tell writers to write about what they know, but they also want them to write about commercial subjects. Maybe you can sort of understand why Keane O’Hara started hanging with a “former” serial killer, for the sake of a book. Arguably, he was just following their contradictory advice. However, the passive schmuck inevitably allows his new friend to completely disrupt his life in Director-screenwriter Tolga Karacelik’s Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer, which releases today on VOD in the UK.

O’Hara’s first book was about Mongolia. He second will be about pre-historic Slovenia, if he ever finishes it. His wife Suzie has finally had enough of supporting his mopey, unproductive butt, so she finally decides on a divorce. Then Kollmick walks into O’Hara’s life.

Approaching the “writer,” Kollmick claims to be a fan and offers him a chance to write about his life as a serial killer—retired, of course. As homework, Kollmick assigns a load of forensic pathology books, which freak out Suzie. However, she sort of likes Kollmick, because she thinks he is the marriage counselor trying to keep them together. That was not the greatest lie O’Hara ever told, but Kollmick is willing to play along. In fact, some of his serial killer double-talk translates surprisingly well into shrink speak. Actually, not really, but Suzie weirdly seems to buy it.

September 5: The 1972 Olympic Terrorist Attack, Live on ABC

The 1972 Olympics were a triumph for one Jewish athlete, American Mark Spitz, until he was forced to leave early, under armed heavy guard. Soon after Spitz swam to his seventh gold medal, the Games turned tragic for eleven Jewish Israeli athletes and coaches, who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Yet, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) never acknowledged their deaths during the Games proper, until they final observed one single solitary minute of silence during the 2020 Covid games in Tokyo, having long deferred to states that hate Jews and sponsor terrorism. Nevertheless, the world knows full well of the Munich atrocities, thanks in part to ABC Sports’ coverage. Swiss director and co-screenwriter Tm Fehlbaum recreates the broadcast team’s tense hours managing their coverage from the network control room in September 5, which releases today in New York theaters.

On paper, it looked like a slow news day for the American team, which is why ABC Sports President Roone Arledge and anchor Jim McKay (seen entirely and extensively in archival footage) had originally taken the day off. They soon returned when staffers reported hearing gunfire in the Olympic Village.

Only few hundred yards away, the bunker-like ABC facility was so close, yet so far—but it was certainly much closer than a studio in New York. Soon, broadcast director Geoffrey Mason and his operations boss Marvin Bader figure ways to steal shots including repurposing the aerial camera and moving one of the studio cameras right outside their facility. They also manage to dispatch Peter Jennings and a cameraman to athletic dorm opposite the unfolding hostage crisis right before the clueless Bavarian police shutdown access to the area.

However, the audience’s POV never leaves the makeshift ABC studio, so we see the outside footage at the same time as do Arledge and his employees. Fehlbaum deliberately presents the story from a narrow perspective, but it captures the confusion and the ethical dilemmas that result from trying to cover violent breaking news. In fact, we watch with the ABC crew as they realize their live coverage may have sabotaged the Bavarian police’s planned rescue attempt.

In fact, Fehlbaum and co-screenwriters Moritz Binder and Alex David directly address the moral implications of the terrorists’ savagery by introducing viewers to David Berger, an Israeli weightlifter hostage (and former American), whom ABC cameras filmed at length during his visit to Auschwitz the previous day. Use of that footage (recreated with actor Rony Herman) both humanizes the victims and draws a clear comparison between the Black September terrorists and Hitler’s National Socialists (although not mentioned in the film, it was later revealed German Neo-Nazis groups provided logistical support for the September 5^th attack). Yet, he also skillfully builds tension from the claustrophobic setting.

Frankly, the Jennings estate might not be thrilled with September 5, because Benjamin Walker’s impersonation-style depiction makes the newsreader look like an arrogant snob. However, Ben Chaplin’s performance as Bader is richly complex, particularly in the ways he relates to his Jewish heritage (which grows increasingly complicated, for obvious reasons).

John Magaro realistically portrays Mason’s shock and disillusion, as his greatest professional moment in the sun turns into a nightmare of profound dimensions. Yet, perhaps the most arresting performance comes from Leonie Benesch, as German translator Marianne Gebhardt, whose pride in Germany’s new progressive direction turns to horror and disgust at its incompetence and short-sightedness.

The Mistress

If you have read your Hawthorne, you should be wary of a house with many gables. Parker certainly should have, being a writer. Instead, he and his wife are initially charmed by all the old love letters they find hidden inside. That also should have rung some alarm bells too, but they don’t suspect the supernatural until it is too late in screenwriter-director Greg Pritkin’s The Mistress, which releases tomorrow in theaters and on VOD.

At first, Parker and Madeline are thrilled with their new Queen Anne house (mostly bought by her, because, you know, he’s a writer). They think the old plate camera they find is charming and the former occupant’s love letters fascinate them. They remain oblivious even when a friend suffers a freak accident. Then Parker starts seeing a mystery woman in the house. Initially, he assumes it is his old stalker, but she reveals herself to be the spirit Rebecca, who committed suicide in the house a century prior, after her married lover rejected her.

The Mistress has some nice bespoke period trappings, like the plate photographs and love letters, but Pritkin’s basic narrative is very familiar stuff. Most horror fans have seen the same before, but oftentimes better.

Still, there are several nice touches. Parker listens to Blue Note-era Herbie Hancock, which is something. It is also pretty mind-blowing to see Rae Dawn Chong playing Madeline’s mom—and she is good, as fans would expect.