The best thing about Greendale, Neil Young’s concept album recently transformed into an arty feature film, is not the kick ass music (although the tunes do prove that Young continues to be THE man, even while becoming an old man). And it’s not the grainy Super 8 in which the whole deal is shot (although the gritty, jittery look does leave in one’s head a pleasantly off-balanced feeling when all is said and done). And it’s certainly not the earnest, lefty yearnings of our storyteller (although the fact that Young, who is pushing 60, still maintains such a hopeful idealism does inspire).
No. The best thing about Greendale is its depiction of the devil: perhaps the most odd and, I would claim, wonderful image of evil to grace the screen in years. Introduced as Young sings “The Devil’s Sidewalk,” this devil is no more than a very ordinary looking man behaving like a nerd, moving like an awkward teen, and dressed like a clown. And I don’t mean a Stephen King’s It kind of evil clown. I mean faux suave. I mean black pants, black shirt, bright red jacket, a panama hat with red stripe, and even brighter shoes made of, I think, cheap red plastic. He dances and walks like a mime trying to evoke the essence of “strut.” He carries on with the world’s shit-eatingest shit-eating grin. As far as devils go, Greendale’s is at once the least intimidating and most bewildering. Ultimately, I think that’s a good thing.
The devil’s role in the narrative is vague. He chills with a murderer wallowing in jail. He serves as the muse for a harmless middle-aged Winnebago-driving artiste. And I think he incites our young activist hero to move to Alaska. Of course, that last one is a noble pursuit, so I don’t what the devil was thinking there.
The guiding lyrics leave it ambiguous and weird: “when the red light shines/ on the streets of hate/ where the devil dines/ who knows what he ate.” Something spicy, perhaps.
It’s hard to say what Young was going for. Maybe by making the devil intensely average, Young is commenting on the evil present in all of us: heart of darkness, yadda, yadda. Maybe, by dorkifying the devil, Young hopes to defang the myth of evil, and return to us ordinary humans, the ability and obligation to make things right in the world. Sure, the whole shtick shouts “metaphor.” But metaphor for what?
Who knows? Maybe, Young was just hoping for a laugh.