Lords of Chaos Becomes a Parady of Itself

How have I not written anything about the upcoming Lords of Chaos movie? Maybe I was just waiting for the idea to cross over from horrible to actually laugh-out-loud funny...and I think that time may have come. Some quotes from one of the movie's producers:

"It is a fascinating topic, a great visual world to depict, and a fun portrayal of Norway. Black metal is possibly the largest cultural export of Norway in the past twenty years."

Dude, you're totally going to piss off the Viking metal guys. They claimed the cultural export of Norway crown five years ago! Seriously, though: how is a movie about a group of alienated teenagers who took their subculture way too seriously going to be a fun portrayal of a whole country? Wouldn't that be like saying that Bowling for Columbine is a fun portrayal of the United States?

"It will be a story of youth and youthful energy, said Pollok, but he emphasized that the film will fall under the teen film category, and that it will be a psychological horror film."

Hence the casting of the lead from Twilight as Varg Vikernes. Not that I had any expectations about or desire to see this film, but my first thought after reading that sentence was that they should just turn the whole thing into a cartoon, Pixar style. Upon further reflection, however, that idea is ridiculous: why not exploit this whole thing to its fullest, take the horror idea to its fullest and make it a slasher film, replete with gore and the exposed flesh of the legions of mythical female black metal fans? It'll totally be a box office smash.

Pagans and Facists

One last post on Lords of Chaos. The end of the book focuses heavily (some might say sensationalistically) on the formative ties between Black Metal scenesters and right wing political parties, with a bit of Satanistic-style violence thrown in for good measure. It's the book's weakest section, because it feels like the authors suddenly decided they needed a thesis, but it does highlight one of Black Metal's interesting conflicts: was this music going to be an agitator for right wing politics and ultra-nationalism, or merely a celebration of individual darkness? Clearly, given Black Metal's vocal themes, there's room for both sides to express themselves, but to the authors at least, the movement's shift towards paganism symbolized the beginnings of some larger nationalistic movement.

Flash forward ten years later. I haven't heard of any extreme right wing takeovers in Europe or the US, so clearly the predicted synergy between nationalists and Black Metal fans is either dormant or non-existent...but sensitivities still exist: while perusing Týr's Wikipedia page, I came across a reference to a video that members of Týr and Moonsorrow made during the European leg of the Paganfest 2008 tour, responding to accusations by German anti-Fascist group BIFFF that their music promotes Fascism. Clearly, whatever the truth of the matter (and to be honest, I think BIFFF's examples demonstrate a profound lack of understanding about the difference between disliking Christianity, or even just being of a different viewpoint than Christianity and liking Facism), the link between paganism in metal and right-wing politics still exists in the minds of some.

More Thoughts on Lords of Chaos

Towards the middle of the book the authors interview two men who write for what the book describes as Norway's "cultural newspaper," Morgenbladet: a Satanist of the old (Aleister Crowley-influenced) school and a Christian who writes on theological matters. They were both discussing the rise of the association between Satanism and Black Metal in Norway and had some interesting theories, but what I found resonant enough to write about was their comparisons of Ihsahn and Varg Vikernes; how after speaking with Ihsahn, they both found his beliefs to be far more sophisticated in both their level of development (more because he had abandoned the idea of evil for evil's sake and settled on a philosophy that was pro-Satan and not just anti-Christ) and their desire for elegance. After reading their thoughts, I realized that the same desire for elegant evil was what I find so attractive about Ihsahn's music, both with Emperor and as a solo artist.

I'm a big fan of evil music - if that wasn't obvious from the blog's title - but I also need my evil music cloaked in different forms (which should also be obvious from the blog's title) to keep it interesting. Alternation between different types of metal certainly does the trick, but a closer examination of the albums I come back to time and time - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, Blackwater Park, Images and Words (to name a few), and more recent additions like angL and Kolossus - reveals a fascination with brutality mixed with elegance. Beat me over the head with high-speed shreds, thunderous bottom ends, and bone-crushing pounding of drums; screech your images of destruction, alienation, and soul-destruction into my ears; put me through the mill of your sonic pain machine, but while you may earn my respect, you'll only win my lasting love if you mix that assault with elegant constructions that emphasize the beauty in your chaos.

Euronymous Was a Huge Douchebag

I'm reading Lords of Chaos, a recounting of the exploits of the Black Metal kids in Norway in the early 90s and their crazy, church-burning ways. The thread of unintentional comedy running through the story is thick with fibers, because these were a group of individuals who took themselves far too seriously. By the time the two journalists wrote the book at the end of the decade, all of the major players (Ihsahn and Samoth of Emperor, Hellhammer - even Varg Vikernes to an extent) had realized most of their views from the time were at best extremely immature, so they spend a lot of time backtracking, but if there was ever a reason not to combine adolescents and celebrity, the whole Black Circle scene exemplifies it to a T.

The one major player who wasn't around to interview in the mid-90s was, of course, Euronymous, who had had the misfortune of getting himself perished. As a result, Lords of Chaos has to rely on existing source documents and the recollections of others for material for their chapter on Euronymous, or - as I like to call it - the Exploration of a Douchebag. Because really, when you come right down to it, that's what the man who, for all intents and purposes, founded the scene really was: a charismatic guy with a lot of extravagant ideas and public persona built on the world's biggest see-through facade. Really, it's a testament to the average Black Metal kid's naivaite that someone didn't stab him sooner, because I can't imagine talking to him for more than few minutes without calling him on all of his bullshit (my favorite story relating to this mismatch between who Euronymous was and who he pretended to be was when he said in a letter that Deicide, Sepultura, and Napalm Death weren't extreme enough and then ended it with a death wish for all trendy people and the word "Aaaaargh!," coming off like a whiny emo kid on a LiveJournal blog). Also, look at this picture: how could you not want to punch him in the face on sight?

I guess the whole reason for this speaking ill of the dead - besides the inspiration garnered from Lords of Chaos - is the sharp contrast between the biographical Euronymous and the Euronymous of my previous experience, taken from interviews with Ihsahn done at the end of the last decade that I read in 2000. The respect Ihsahn had for his late friend was palpable and from his words I developed a mental picture of someone with a far steadier hand and mind than the one I've read about in the past few days.