Word: kramer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...received with less than overwhelming enthusiasm, and Atlantic, their recording company, rushed out another album, One Way or Another. Still, no success. Finally someone down at Atlantic wised up, and for Cactus's third album, Restrictions, they brought in Geoffrey Haslam, one of their best staff producers, and Eddie Kramer and Dave Palmer, two of the finest engineers in the business...
...rock fans began to show somewhat less interest in the style of performance and more interest in the actual quality of the song as a piece of writing. Accordingly, a Lennon-McCartney song recorded by a mediocre group (such as "Bad to Me" by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas) would become more popular than a rehashed oldie by the Beatles themselves. Even the Rolling Stones, who made their name and their first few hits as interpreters, and sometimes imitators, of other people's songs, had to shift to a format of all originals...
...Kramer's is the easiest kind of statement to make superficially and still score emotional points. Audiences have always been gulled by it, even 'sophisticated' ones, so Kramer's influence must not be simply scoffed at. In fact, the only alternatives offered to it by the few American films dealing with contemporary social ills have been 16mm Newsreel formlessness, the terrorism of ex-Weatherman Robert Kramer's Ice, the varying documentary techniques of Wiseman, De Antonio et al. None are really interested in getting at the conceptual root of an issue, and then advocating viable morality or actions. None really...
...Pontecorvo, Bertolucci have all made films which transform tough social criticism, by passion and human perception, into art. Even Italian hacks, like Montaldo of Sacco and Vanzetti fame, are hacks on a higher plane. If American film is to mature, its maturity will come from those able to confront Kramer's value system and erase its sigma from socially-conscious flimmaking. As Robert Steel said (in New American Review...
...friend of mine was filming the Kramer proceedings for one of his Brandeis film courses. At times, he'd lower the sound equipment he was holding to fill in details (with snickering nonchalance), of Kramer's own productions. I urged Pete to sink his film in a time capsule, so that future generations will know that once there were filmmakers who didn't know much about film, weren't interested in taking stands on social issues, but felt very committed to people. If, that is, those generations--after years of Kramer-like brainpickling--will be able to tell the difference...