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| Go Down Death |
Go Down Death is
an analogue anomaly. An indie film with a stew of characters and events ripped
from a fantastical folkloric Americana, it resembles a cross between Guy Maddin
and Robert Crumb.
Filmed on grainy black-and-white 16mm stock, and shot within an abandoned paint factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Go Down Death has a ruined and artificial look. It’s remarkable that
such a low-budget film seamlessly evokes photos from the 19th century.
No standard narrative arc and three-act structure to speak
of, Go Down Death is a mishmash of
vignettes set mainly in a Podunk brothel. It moves between a
handful of characters that include: two “Mutt and Jeff” soldiers stranded in the
woods, surrounded by birch trees; johns sharing post-coital chit chat with
their prostitutes; and a boy named Butler, who just so happens to be the town’s
gravedigger too.
The topic of conversation in these monologues and dialogues revolves
around looming mortality. “Womb don’t rhyme with tomb for nothing,” one of the
soldiers tells Butler, enticing him to enlist in the army because he’s
guaranteed a grave. Although Schimberg borrowed the title from a 1944 Spencer Williams film, it was first the name of James Weldon Johnson’s funeral sermon. If
not exchanging thoughts about inevitable death in hilariously dry scenes, they
sing about it. Go Down Death is a
cross-eyed musical as well. A cabaret performer sings the nightmarish “Too
Young to Die,” in which the title is the only lyric, and it’s repeated
endlessly.
Zachary Treitz’s Men
Go to Battle (2015) is a film with a similar budget that depicts the past
with convincing results. Where that film deploys naturalism, Go Down Death uses artifice. It conjures
half-recalled and imagined moments from the dustbin of American history. Go Down Death is fabulist folklorama.
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