Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard (2011)
From myth to legend Rowland Howard appeared on the early Melbourne punk scene like a phantom out of Kafkaesque Prague or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A beautifully gaunt and gothic aristocrat, the unique distinctive fury of his guitar style shot him directly into the imagination of a generation. He was impeccable, the austerity of his artistry embodied in his finely wrought form, his obscure tastes and his intelligently wry wit. He radiated a searing personal integrity that never seemed to tarnish. Despite the trials and tribulations of his career, in an age of makeover and reinvention, Rowland Howard never ‘sold out’. With recent and moving interviews, archival interviews and other fascinating and original footage, AUTOLUMINESCENT traces the life of Rowland S Howard. Capturing moments with the man himself and intimate missives from those who knew him behind closed doors; words and images etch light into what has always been the mysterious dark.
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Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Rowland S. Howard is depicted as a bold, passionate, innovative and opinionated guitarist. The film covers quite a bit of his early career in Australia, London and Berlin with The Boys Next Door / The Birthday Party. Nearly the first half of the film is dedicated to this period.The rest of the film chronicles his career and personal life, skipping over certain projects but giving a general picture of his music's evolution. There is no shortage of interviews, which include Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Howard, himself. Many more valuable view points come from his siblings, ex-lovers, old friends and fellow musicians.I would say this film suffers mostly from occasional vagueness, a loose time line and a lack of photos and footage from certain periods in Howard's life. Overall it's an interesting and fairly insightful watch for those familiar with his music and fans of The Birthday Party. However, I can't guarantee that it will entertain the casual viewer.
This is a nice portrait of a unique guitar player with a noisy yet melodic style, whose presence helped define a decade or more of primitive, arty and ambitious rock music. It relies on first hand accounts by a number of people close to Howard, including Nick Cave, Wim Wenders and Howard himself. Interspersed with waist-up interview shots are clips from various club and festival gigs, and a few still photographs.They pay special attention to the seeming contrast between Howard's droll sense of humor and the rather tragic melancholy of his music, and to some extent, his countenance. Like most rock docs, it has a sort of up then down trajectory that traces the subject's rise to prominence and subsequent fall into despair. But Autoluminescent doesn't really dwell on the drugs or the sickness or the failed romances. Instead, it uses them to set up each segment of the artist's musical development, from teenage prodigy to prodigal middle- aged son, returning to form from the brink of irrelevance.Cave's recollections seem especially affectionate, while rock doc stalwart Henry Rolllins seems typically awestruck by having crossed paths with such a transcendent talent.You get a good appreciation for the high regard in which Howard's contemporaries held his playing style, despite the difficulties they had maintaining personal connections with the man.I came away wanting to delve much further into his discography, beyond the Birthday Party stuff which mostly defines his career.