GANG OF FOUR: HARD MEN IN GOOD CARS
At their best, the Gang Of Four make music at total war with itself.
"All we have in common is the illusion of being together. And the only resistance to the illusions of the permitted painkillers come from the collective desire to destroy isolation..."
—The Vindicator, a shady figure in Brave Commandos, #17.
"I've got ants in my pants, and I've got to dance!"
—Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
Consider two dance scenes from the movies. In Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill, a kitchenful of wimped-out '60s veterans have just finished eating a pictureperfect dinner. Somebody puts an old Motown record on, and the sound immediately organized the moment: as the table is cleared, everyone sways with the music, caught up in its "magic." The music was made at the same time as their nowdeflated dreams, and their sentimental attachment to the song mimics their attachment to what they were. The music condemns them, as they dance, to confirm their fears that they are failures.