Let me tell you about the greatest film ever made.
It’s not Citizen Kane. While a fantastic story and a fantastic example of the medium etc etc, it’s top five material at best - not number one. Likewise, despite whatever IMDB.com would have you believe, it’s not The Shawshank Redemption either. That’s based on a user-submitted 9.2 star rating average, and come on – what the hell do those people know? (as proof of this, one IMDB user rates the film ten stars and points to the simplicity of it all: “No action, no special effects - just men in prison uniforms talking to each other.” Well thanks, but if that’s a positive point, why bother with the visuals at all? Wouldn’t it work better as a radio play? What makes it a great film? [Delving deeper into the psyche of that IMDB poster, they also award High Plains Drifter nine out of ten stars in spite of admitting that while they have “seen it 5 or 6 times... I’m still not sure I understand it and I still don't enjoy it.” Death of the author and all that aside, if you admit to not understanding a film on any level, not even on a personal, subjective scale, how can you rate that film nine out of ten. That is actual insanity. It’s insane. That’s IMDB.])
No, the Greatest Film Of All Time is from the Greatest Director Of All Time. How is he the GDOAT? Well, he made the GFOAT. And it’s the only film he ever made (according to IMDB and a brief Googling.)
IMDB informs me that he’s down 36% in popularity this week, and offers to tell me why with IMDBPro. I don’t need IMDBPro to tell me that, I know already. It’s because most people can’t handle just how amazingly awesome his (admittedly singular) oeuvre truly is. If you make the GFOAT, and it’s all you ever make, that’s a 100% track record of perfection.
The man has that record.
The man is Tetsuro Takeuchi.
The film is Guitar Wolf: Wild Zero.
Guitar Wolf is the GBOAT.
Guitar Wolf is Japanese appropriation of American 50s rock‘n’roll and 70s punk culture made physical. Guitar Wolf wear leather and play out-of tune Link Wray tracks too loud (too loud is not loud enough). Guitar Wolf wear sunglasses at all times, and warm up by combing their hair. Guitar Wolf is (or more accurately, was, in 2000 at the time of the film’s release) Seiji, Billy and Toru. Guitar Wolf is (was) also Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf. Guitar Wolf will blow your mind.
In an interview on RockOfJapan, Seiji prioritises the most important aspects of Rock’n’Roll in their order of necessity with regards to being in a cool band like Guitar Wolf:
Basic rock and roll is: Number one is looks; Number two is guts, tension; Number three is action; Maybe four, five nothing; Six is skill, technique.
How amazing is that! Guts and tension rate higher than skill and technique! Obviously this is a contentious issue, however it’s absolutely true with Guitar Wolf – there’s an entirely unbridled enthusiasm that’s contagious when listening to their music and being at their shows. A sense that regardless of their actual talent or skill (which is understated), by giving 1,000,000%, clearly loving what they’re doing, and communicating this to their audience by sheer force, it somehow elevates them from noisy-punk-show to life-changing-experience.
If the Sex Pistols’s Manchester gig was instrumental in the inspiration for bands such as Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Fall, etc, then the atmosphere at a Guitar Wolf show is the closest thing out there today. Guts and tension.
I saw Guitar Wolf when they toured Australia in late 2005. I couldn’t distinguish one song from the next. At one point Seiji was clearly having issues with his guitar. This had absolutely no discernable impact upon the sound being produced. After hours of extreme physical exertion, and with two strings remaining on his signature Epiphone SG (signature! As in, Epiphone Japan actually produced for a time a Guitar Wolf model SG! How cool is that! [It’s actually super cool!]). Seiji parted the audience and fell off the stage. He ran, doubled over with exhaustion, to the back of the room where there was a small table. He clambered onto this table, and seemed to wait there a moment, as if to catch his breath.
Slowly and shakily, he rose to his feet, and started ushering people to get back, to make room in front. He motioned for the band to stop playing. He stood there in sunglasses, leather pants, boots, and a leather jacket with nothing underneath. He’d ripped off his t-shirt earlier in a display of incredible rock power. All eyes were fixed in silence on this skinny Japanese man, the coolest guy in the world. Guts and tension.
Seiji howled like a wolf, and screamed “Lock and Loll!” as he jumped off the table and struck a chord. But he didn’t really jump, so much as fall from a slow forward tilt. And the chord was actually a thin, dischordant thing that sounded for a fraction of a second. And as he hit the ground his legs buckled and he pitched forward, tripping on a step and coming down onto his face.
At that moment everyone in the room wanted to be this man. He was a living rock’n’roll gestalt. No one single aspect of his performance would conventionally be considered ‘successful’, but when taken together, it’s the GTOAT.
Guitar Wolf: Wild Zero captures perfectly what Guitar Wolf is all about.
The plot is largely irrelevant. There are aliens invading the earth. There are zombies. There’s a theme of love conquering all. Fire comes out of things. Guitar Wolf the band exist in this world. Seiji has a katana hidden in the neck of his guitar. He throws guitar picks like electrically-charged shuriken. Hair is combed. Heads explode. Both guts and tension abound.
Society would benefit greatly from a government program issuing copies of Wild Zero to every individual on their thirteenth birthday. Real juvenile delinquency down, fun, John Waters-style juvenile delinquency up.
It’s the purest cinematic experience outside of porn. It seeks to demonstrate and convey to the viewer the manic intensity and sincerity of Guitar Wolf, it wants to get you excited, and it absolutely succeeds. The title, Wild Zero, means nothing with regard to the film. It’s just cool. This is important. In this, its devotion to a singular goal at the cost of what squares would deem necessary to a film (such as a comprehensible plot), it’s the GFOAT.
As if the situation could not get any more perfect, Guitar Wolf also star in The Sore Losers, directed by John Michael McCarthy. He cast them as alien cops. It’s genius.
