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The following
is from 312 No. 17, Feb. 2 - Mar. 15, 2008 [Download
Exhibition Publication, .PDF format]:
AV,
“Dubus”
“Let
me tell you my idea for a film. It’s gonna be called ‘Dubus,’
which doesn’t really mean anything in particular, but sounds
a lot like it’s related to ‘dub.’ It has a real
‘classic’ feel to it, like something out of the golden
age of Hollywood, you know, really 1940s. It’s meant to
be made in black and white, but these days, that can be a hard
sell. Here’s the basic idea…
Jerry Malloy
is a former musician turned dockworker in Brooklyn. His boss is
a local mobster taking orders from Chicago and running prohibition
booze for Al Capone. When Jerry finds out the gang boss has ordered
the death of another musician—his old childhood pal Joe—Jerry
alerts Joe to the bad news and the two are forced to flee.
While on
the run, the two manage to find work in a touring all-women band
by disguising themselves as women—becoming Geraldine and
Josephine, respectively. Things are as quiet as could be expected
for a while, until Geraldine overhears the band’s manager
talking about pianist Ted Scott’s band and their new charity.
It turns out that Ted’s band is going to adopt a foreign
refugee for a significant amount of money. Immediately, Geraldine
and Josephine plot to pose as twin refugees from Sun Valley, Idaho
in order to get the cash. They make the necessary contacts and
head to Idaho to complete the fraud.
Naturally,
Ted Scott’s band also heads to Idaho to present the twins
with the money, but when they arrive they discover the two ‘refugees’
aren’t girls at all! They’re fully-grown women (sort
of). Having blown a lot of money on the trip and booked to play
for at least a week in Sun Valley, Ted discovers the two women
are musicians and promptly recruits Geraldine and Josephine to
play in his band to make up for all the hassle.
The next
week passes somewhat uneventfully as the band plays an upscale
nightclub and gambling den called ‘Rick’s Café
Américain’ on Sun Valley’s White House Boulevard.
Suddenly, on the last night, a wealthy Idaho media magnate has
what appears to be a heart attack, falling into Josephine’s
arms in the middle of a saxophone solo, dying after uttering a
single word—“rosebud.” Immediately, Geraldine
and Josephine recruit Ted Scott to help them uncover the mystery
of the media magnate’s final word, hoping to find a big
pot of cash at the end of the rainbow.
That’s
more or less the gist of it. I’ve even got some of the casting
thought through—I can see Jerry being played by Marlon Brando,
or perhaps Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis as Joe. John Payne would
make an excellent Ted Scott, and Humphrey Bogart could make a
cameo as the nightclub owner in Idaho. I also think the media
magnate is perfect for Orson Welles. The only thing I’m
missing is a good love interest, and for that, perhaps Ingrid
Bergman could be brought in. After all, we’d only have to
write her in. What do you think?”
Dubus
by AV is on exhibit at 312 from February 2 – March 15, 2008.
It’s a video that scratches together pieces from five classic
Hollywood films—Casablanca, Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront,
Some like it Hot, and Sun Valley Serenade—and sets them
to music by Zelany Rashoho. The video’s feel is all prohibition-era
speakeasy and the password is ‘rosebud.’
AV (Alexei
and Sergei Dmitriev) live and work
in St. Petersburg, Russia. ‘Dubus’ has been screened
internationally since its premiere in 2005 at St. Petersburg’s
Multimedia Art Festival. It has won several awards, including
the Jury Prize at the International Videofestival Bochum (Bochum,
Germany) and Best Experimental Film at Girona International Film
Festival (Girona, Spain).
Mark
Prier.
[Download
Exhibition Publication, .PDF format]
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