Every night this month, from 11:57 p.m. to midnight, an abridged version of artist Laurie Anderson's film "Heart of a Dog" will be playing in Times Square as part of the Midnight Moment project.
The film is hard to pin down to one genre. It's about life, death and what comes next. It's enigmatic, experimental and abstract. It is composed mostly of images from Anderson's childhood and loved ones who have passed on, like late husband Lou Reed, her mother and her dog, a rat terrier named Lolabelle. Anderson's voice guides the audience through the film with a calm, meditative tone. The film looks upwards, and Andersen says that much of it was intended to be shot from the point of view of a dog, reports The New York Times.
Lolabelle was a very important figure in Anderson's life. She was a very special dog, a sidekick to Anderson, and she even played piano. Watch below as she played at one of Anderson's record launches:
Here's what Anderson had to say about Lolabelle and her legacy, according to Billboard:
"She was a really sweet dog. She was a New York dog so when I took her out to California, she had just been in the social scene in the West Village, a city dog. So when she got into the California hills and those hawks came down, the back of her dog brain, she knew exactly why they had come. I felt very bad to have shown her a place where she would be very afraid. She was trembling. When she went blind, a lot of dogs do very well - their smell is great; their hearing is amazing - but she would not move. She froze. We had to pick her up to take her out every time. And then you'd put her back down and she wouldn't move. I would never have tried to teach her to play piano unless I was at the end of my rope."
"I gotta learn how to be old from Lolabelle. She went from being paralyzed to loving playing. Music saved her life; it saved my life too. I'm sure a lot of people who read Billboard know exactly what I'm talking about - it can save your life. So also it was her own little world where she could play and she played keyboards and bells and castanets and barked and it was a joyful little scene for her and she would run in every day and she'd turn the keyboards on and just play, using these little programs, stuff I use."
Check out "Heart of a Dog" in theaters today, or go to Times Square and watch the Midnight Moment version. It's also available to watch here.
