Strange Angels: Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog a Deeply Profound, Unforgettable Cinematic Experience

Back when I was coming of age I was thunderstruck by this odd creature Laurie Anderson – a “performance artist,” she was called. She spiked her hair out from her round face, which was marked by two very deep dimples on each side of her apple cheeks. With an impish expression she would flatly deliver words and music that took you places.

“When love is gone, there’s always justice.
when justice is gone, there’s always force.
And force is gone, there’s always mom.
Hi mom! 

So hold me, mom.
In your long arms.
In your automatic arms.”

I’d never seen anyone like her then and unfortunately, there isn’t anyone out there like her now. When Madonna swept in with her legs spread eagle sex became the way to provoke and that’s not changed, not in mainstream music anyway. Laurie Anderson was out there, though. She was a popular force and she did it without ever once using her sexuality. It is unheard of now, when even Taylor Swift has to show off the goods for her most in-depth interviews. Women who want people to listen to them must open their legs a little.

Laurie Anderson’s words, music and art with her invented instruments and her electric violin embedded, making permanent marks. I hadn’t heard from her in a while, not since Strange Angels captivated my time and attention. Thus, I’d almost forgotten what a creative force she was when I sat down to watch “Heart of a Dog,” her ode to her dearly departed little dog Lolabelle.

All at once, Anderson lost both Lolabelle and Lou Reed, her partner for twenty years. Heart of a Dog is as much about losing Lou Reed as it is about Lolabelle but that’s never made obvious, of course. It’s just there – this echo of grief, grief that longs to transform. She ties this in with the way New York changed after 9/11. She ties it in with primal fear of being killed, Lolabelle’s and hers.

Anderson the artist uses paintings and blurred images to convey the emotional content, that has to be adorned by that voice. Anderson’s voice is one of her most effective tools at provoking the listener, either with a flatline monotone or on occasion, changing the octave to sound like a man. She does not do this here. Here, she wants us to listen to what she is saying and what she is saying is quite personal, direct, her journey towards the end with her beloved dog laid bare.

In Heart of a Dog, Anderson gives us the gift of also knowing Lolabelle. Lolabelle, the rat terrier who was taught to paint and play the keyboard after she went blind. Lolabelle, the ever watchful hiking guard. Anderson gives us this gift because she learns that in the Tibetan Book of Dead it confuses the dead if we’re sad over them because they think we’re calling them back. Instead, they want us to be happy, to celebrate and to give to others.

Heart of a Dog examines this aspect of letting go in such a beautiful way it might actually change the way you think about death, if you’re someone who obsesses on it, as I do. It would have been impossible for her not to contemplate it after such an enormous loss. Death, in this context, is a way of letting go of love. Thus, the heart of the dog is love. Anyone who has a dog already knows this.

Human beings are in many ways a scourge to this planet, with their only redeeming features being the ones who are trying to undo the damage we’ve caused. There are a few exceptions to this and Laurie Anderson is one of those. Heart of a Dog helps ease the suffering of the unbearable truth we all carry around with us knowing we are going to die. Everyone we know an love is going to die. Our beloved four-legged companions, too, will die.

To say too much about it would be to spoil its discoverable beauty. But here’s to Laurie Anderson and her Lolabelle. Here’s to Lou Reed and New York City. Here’s to them finding each other in the first place. Here’s to the pure love dogs bring us while asking for very little in return. That love should remind each of that the heart of a human is a lot like the heart of a dog if we’d only let it be.