Screamin' Jay at the movies

Date: 8 May 2003 20:48:57 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.punk
Size: 1,075 bytes

The late, great Screamin' Jay Hawkins's song I Put A Spell On You
shows up in the movie Divine Intervention, in a rendition by Arabic
pop star Natacha Atlas. The movie is a comedy about everyday life in
Palestine, and the song plays in a scene at a traffic light in the
West Bank. A Palestinian driver pulls up next to a Jewish settler with
Israeli flags all over his station wagon. The two of them stare each
other down, then the Palestinian guy pops a tape into his stereo and
cranks up the Screamin' Jay cover. The light changes, but they just
keep staring while the song plays out. The song plays again over the
closing credits.
This is the second time I've seen this same song hold together a cool
movie. The first was Stranger than Paradise, that Jim Jarmusch movie
about a Hungarian immigrant who walks around everywhere blasting her
Screamin' Jay on a bootleg cassette player. Mr. Hawkins himself had a
cameo in Jarmusch's Mystery Train, but he didn't get to rock in that
film. He mostly sat behind a desk and looked bored, and then he
swallowed a whole plum.
yama