INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES
SIMON BROUGHTON: MR WORLD MUSIC
TEXT: CRAIG DUNCAN
Simon Broughton is, quite simply, 'Mr World Music'.
He's co-editor of The Rough Guide to World Music, the authoritative book on the subject. He's the editor of world music magazine Songlines. He's also a prodigious documentary film-maker, travelling the globe to direct and produce films for the BBC, the UK's Channel 4 and the European Broadcasting Union.
In October he'll be in Prague to present a number of his world music documentaries at Prague's annual MOFFOM (Music On Film / Film On Music) Festival. As well as the world premiere of his new film Mariza and the Story of Fado, we'll see screenings of his 2005 film Sufi Soul, his 1993 Czech-British co-production Music of Terezín, and his 1992 klezmer documentary Fiddler on the Hoof.
In between shooting and editing a classical music film in London, Simon Broughton took some time to tell LINK about the films he'll be presenting in Prague...
For your new film Mariza and the story of Fado, you went to Portugal to document the roots of fado music. Starting with the basics - what is fado?
Fado is an urban Portuguese music. It's not folk music, it's a sort of blues. It grew up in Lisbon, and was a product of the Portuguese empire and its associations with Brazil and with Africa. I always say that music can be a window on the world, and you really can look at the history of Portugal in the 20th century through fado.
Fado started in the 19th century. Lisbon was and still is a very multicultural city, and all those people who lived there, the Brazilians, the Africans there gave birth to this music. By the end of the 19th century it had become this very left wing, very working class song. Then there was a right wing coup in 1926 in Lisbon, so all of this left wing tradition of fado was suppressed, it disappeared.
In the 50's, the fascist regime decided to use fado to promote Portuguese national identity and so on, but emasculate it and make it all sentimental, songs about family values and things that were very safe for that regime to support. So when the fascists were overthrown in '74, fado went into a complete decline - nobody wanted to play it, because it had been tainted by its association with the fascists. It took a generation, 15 years or so, for that to wear off and for this new generation of singers to come forward and really give new life to the music.
Mariza is already familiar to some Czech audiences from her performance at Colors of Ostrava 2005. Is she typical of modern fado?
Mariza is the absolute leading fado singer of today. She's a remarkable artist. She's young, she's one of these performers who really command attention, and she's one of these figures who've really broken out from what you might call the world music ghetto. Mariza was born in Mozambique, the former Portuguese colony, and she came to Lisbon when she was very young. So in a way she also represents something similar to the roots of fado. I wanted to tell the story of the music and her story. They intertwine quite well.
Also showing for the first time here is your 2005 film from last year Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music of Islam.
Because so much of Sufism is directed through music, it clearly appealed to my musical interests. But also the interest for me in Sufi music was within the context of the - I hate the expression, but - the 'war on terror,' that mentality. I thought it was very important to underline that there is this whole strand of Islam, not a small eccentric strand but a mainstream strand, which is very peaceful, very pluralistic, very open to other religions and cultures. It's something that doesn't get reflected in the media, it's always the extremists who capture the headlines. And there is so much fantastic music associated with Sufism: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the whirling dervishes...
Sufi Soul is your second recent film about Islamic music, following on from last year's festival hit Breaking The Silence: Music in Afghanistan. Is this an area of music you've developed an increasing interest in?
What interests me in those two subjects is that it's an area where politics and music meet. The ban on music under the Taliban in Afghanistan was the strongest ban there has ever been on music in history. When something so draconian and unpopular is overturned, it's a fascinating time to look at what happens.
And I very much wanted to introduce people to what Afghan music is; a lot of people will have an idea of what Indian music is, but I don't think so many people have an idea of what Afghan music is. So I wanted to show the roots of it, and how it's fared under first the Soviet invasion, then the Mujahedeen, and the Taliban, and now the quasi-democratic new Afghanistan.
Going back to the films at this year's festival: a couple of your classics are screening, including your 1993 BBC/Czech TV co-production Music of Terezín...
It's such a curious thing, that there was an artistic life in a concentration camp, and how that happened. The conditions in Terezín were terrible, of course, a lot of people died there, but it wasn't an extermination camp. [The Terezín regime's tolerance of art and music] meant that people could lead something close to a normal life, albeit in very poor conditions. It meant that art could be an escape; music could be an escape from the horror of the circumstances.
You'd previously made a BBC radio documentary about the musicians and composers of Terezín in the mid-1980s. Why did you come back to do it as a film?
Coming back to do the Terezín film was thrilling: a whole different environment, not just being there as tolerated journalists doing a report for the radio, but doing a proper co-production with Czech TV. It was like the links were being remade, the rebuilding of all those things that hadn't been there before 1989. Making joint programmes together, sharing resources, budgets, editorial thoughts. And with absolutely no political pressures behind it at all. Personally I found that very thrilling, because I'd seen what it had been like on previous trips.
In the last 15 or so years, the mainstream profile of world music has rocketed. What do you think is behind this trend?
I think there are many reasons. One is much easier travel: people are travelling more and more. But I think there's also much more openness. I mean, ten years ago things like conservation, recycling, organic food, these were all seen as rather fringe, eccentric, hippy-like things. And now they're absolutely mainstream. Everybody wants to save energy, eat healthy food, and I think the world music thing is sort of allied to that, in terms of being something that is in real touch with emotions and people's lives. And also, with globalisation and the globalisation of music, there's this sort of 'McDonaldisation' of popular culture, rock music, pop music... it's good to have a nice healthy alternative with lots of fibre. And that's what I feel world music is sometimes.
Mariza and the Story of Fado
21 October, 1830, Světozor cinema
Music of Terezín
21 October, 2100, Spanish Synagogue
Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music of Islam
21 October, 1730, Světozor Cinema
SIMON BROUGHTON'S CZECH CONNECTIONS
Simon Broughton is no stranger to the Czech Republic - he's been a sporadic visitor to these parts for almost three decades. He first came here in 1978, doing voluntary work on a nature reserve in Moravia. 'A so-called work camp,' he says. 'A free holiday really... I was a student.'
He came back in 1985, this time with BBC radio. He had obtained permission to make a radio documentary, about the composers and musicians who had been imprisoned by the Nazis in the Terezín concentration camp. At the same time, Broughton and his team also managed to link up with Václav Havel and other dissidents to secretly record a second, unauthorised documentary about Prague's underground theatre culture.
He recalls, 'The Terezín project was officially approved, and we just sort of didn't mention the other one. We had to meet all the people in secret... It was tricky. A friend of mine who I'd got to know from my first trip, who I also saw at that time, ended up having quite a lot of problems with the secret police.'
It was 1993 before he returned here, this time directing a BBC/Czech TV co-production, Music of Terezín (see main article). Most recently he's been in the Moravian town of Strání, directing a documentary on the traditional Faąank carnival there. He'll be in Prague in October presenting the films at this year's MOFFOM festival.
'Of all the cities in Europe,' says Broughton, 'I think I've probably been to Prague more than any other.'
KLEZMER SPECIAL!
2006 is the Year of Jewish Culture, marking 100 years since the foundation of Prague's Jewish Museum - what better opportunity to get into the great sound of klezmer?
First of all, don't miss Simon Broughton's 1992 documentary Fiddler On The Hoof, screening at 0530 on 20 October in Evald cinema. The film follows klezmer from the Eastern European shtetl to contemporary New York, and features early footage of The Klezmatics.
Says Broughton, 'At the time the film was made, that's really when the Klezmatics were just emerging. And now, almost 15 years later really, they're the pioneers and lots of other people have followed. But the concerns that most people are dealing with and exploring in the film are the same concerns they're dealing with in that music now.'
What's happened in klezmer since 1992? You'll know if you caught the Klezmer Madness show at Palác Akropolis this summer, featuring Klezmatics clarinettist David Krakauer and Canadian hip hop producer Socalled. Socalled is coming back to Prague in October for a special live show.
Every year the MOFFOM festival screens a silent film classic with a specially-commissioned live musical score. This year it's the turn of Socalled, who'll be applying his unique electro-klezmer-hip-hop sound to Paul Wegener's 1922 horror classic Der Golem.
Fiddler on the Hoof
Evald cinema, 20 October, 1730
The Socalled Golem
Cinema Lucerna, 20 October 2000
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