For
many years I have fancied having a stab at directing a short
film. I wanted to make a piece that ‘stood alone’
and was not just a vehicle for promoting one of my tracks.
(I think pop videos, in this post modern age, are such ‘old
hat’). My initial thought was to honour Ingmar Bergman’s
‘Winter Sun,’ which is one of my favourite films.
I quite fancied myself playing the part of a priest having
a melodramatic crisis of faith. I envisaged a stark black
and white affair set in contemporary inner city setting. Don’t
get me wrong, along with those two other iconic existentialists,
Jean Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni, Bergman’s
movies delight, depress, confound and irritate me in equal
measure; having said that, I respect the three of them enormously,
both for their dazzling radicalism and sheer directorial skill
and vision. Without a shadow of doubt Andrei Tarkosvy picked
up their mantle a decade later. It’s the new wave of
Turkish and Iranian directors, along with HBO, who are now
most likely to make beautifully crafted studies of lonely
intellectuals having spiritual crises’. (I would particularly
recommend Ceylan’s ‘Uzak’).
After pondering the essence of the
three directors’ works, I decided to change tack. Rather
than go with Bergman I decided to focus on, a particular part,
of what I feel is the Italian member of the iconic three’s
tour de force, ‘Blowup’. My change of heart came
whilst watching a ‘you tube’ clip of the brilliant
vintage short, ‘London to Brighton in 4minutes’.
I was playing the clip, of the speeding steam train, over
and over, whilst composing a frenzied ¾ time signature
drum and bass rhythm to it. Suddenly Antonioni’s ‘Blowup’
popped into my mind. This may at first, seem a strange association
for me to have made, but please bear with me.
‘Blowup’ is, ostensibly at
least, a murder mystery, but to be honest that aspect of the
movie is no more than a side show for me. The film features
a day in the life of a ghastly narcissistic (and desensitised)
fashion photographer, ‘Thomas’ (played superbly
by David Hemmings). ‘Blowup’ is set in, and feeds
off, sixties swinging London. It was itself inspired by a
short story, first published in 1959, called ‘Las Babas
Del Diablo’, by the Argentinean author Julio Cortazar.
Both films compress and play with time; ‘London to Brighton’
in a very straight forward fashion, the other, ‘Blowup’
in a much more subtle manner, using the vehicle of photography
to freeze and replay time. In any case, both films, when all
is said and done, make you feel as though you are recklessly
speeding through time and space, whilst continuously surveying
the same ‘narrow’ (and tedious) scene. (Perhaps
we will now begin to view ‘London to Brighton’ as
an existentialist classic)! Ironically it’s the train
that stops in time, whereas ‘Thomas,’ in a metaphoric
sense at least, hits the buffers (of amorality).
I
decided to utilise the scene in ‘Blowup’ where
‘Thomas’ photographs the model Veruschka. My pounding
relentless, restless, ¾ rhythm suited the self concerned
and conceited Thomas character to a tee. When I first saw
this photo shoot scene I was still a teenager, and I absolutely
hated it. In fact at that point I despised just about every
aspect of the film. I found it ludicrously decadent. I thought
that Hemming’s character was a very nasty bit of work,
to the point of being an over the top caricature. Well before
too long I was cracking on in the music business meeting
people like ‘Thomas’ on a pretty regular basis,
especially around the Chelsea and Notting Hill sets. From
record company executives, through to lead singers and photographers,
there were plenty around. I think that narcissists (and
their close cousins the sociopaths), really started to come
to the fore in the hedonistic ‘me first’ sixties.
They have been multiplying exponentially since then. They
often come in the form of celebrities. Many in our society
are fixated upon them. I think that people with narcissistic
personality disorder tend to have a ‘black hole’
like quality. Everything and everyone in their orbit, who
lacks a good instinct for survival, gets sucked in and sucked
dry.
I
decided to revamp the ‘Thomas’ character and jump
him ahead into middle age, where he is still bored and contemptuous
of everything that comes in his path, only he now has an
added quality of bitter disappointment and fear of ageing.
I had a very clear idea of how he should now look and behave.
(Ok ok I admit it....it afforded me the opportunity to wear
ridiculous blond wig and get sprayed a fetching shade of
orange. I must admit it was fun playing the aging narcissist,
driving around in a flash motor. I found it hard to get
out of character once shooting was complete. My face was
stuck in ‘contemptuous and disappointed’ sneer
mode).
I
thought it fitting to put him in a swanky dockland’s
penthouse apartment, with a gorgeous young wife (who he
treats with disdain), and a vintage Aston Martin. But of
course none of this brings him any degree of happiness or
comfort. He has no empathy for anything or anyone around
him. Everything and everyone is a commodity, purely a means
to an end. He is still living in an entrenched state of
ignorance. I wanted the finished film to look like a million
dollars. I wanted it to have the production values of the
best ads. I wanted it to have the same seductive quality
that car ads and perfume ads display....as they lead us
by the nose into a false world of illusion and permanent
dissatisfaction.
Realization
of the Idea
So I had my vision of what the film could be, but how could
I realise it? That was the problem. The answer was very
simple. I had a chat with my good friends John Brennan,
Saul Gittens and Andrew Black at Procam Television. They
made my life very easy. They put a complete package together.
Unlike when I am planning musical tours I had no unsexy
stuff to take care off. The logistical load was taken off
my back. I told them the sort of locations I thought we
needed and the sort of ‘look’ that I thought was
required, in regard to the actors, and to the film generally,
and everything was sorted toot suite. And when it came to
the technical side of things they were full of good advice.
I could not have made a film to this technical standard
without them, end of story.Thanks to them I had fun from
start to finish.
A
big thanks as well to my good pal, the writer and journalist,
Paul Gorman who I asked to help style the film. I wanted
some strong passing references to the swinging London scene
of the sixties. However, I didn’t want it to look in
any way cheesy or kitsch. He knew exactly what line of approach
to take, and introduced me to a bloke called Lloyd Johnson,
who is an avid and expert collector of all thing sixties.
He also invited, to the shoot, the incredibly chic Emma
Peelpants, who's a 60s clothes collector and dealer and
has an incredible wardrobe of vintage clothes, along with
Jenny Drag, the singer with garage band The Priscillas,
who is rake thin and very pale, with a 60s black bouffant.
The other people that I wanted involved in my short movie
was the Missoni fashion label. I am not terribly knowledgeable
in regard to high fashion, however, I know what I like,
and I like Missoni clothes. Similar to Antonioni, they are
Italians who have stuck to their guns. It is so fitting
that they got involved. Over the years I have bought a few
of their clothes. I find I can look stylish without coming
across like mutton dressed as lamb. The clothes are well
made as well. Well anyway, Missoni UK’s boss Gisela
and her assistant Amila, (who has sung on my records in
the past), could not have been more helpful. They knew immediately
the various looks that I was trying to achieve. Not only
did they provide beautiful clothes, they also provided a
beautiful model Laura (she of the very large eyes), who
reminded me not a little bit of a young Sophia Loren. Laura
is certainly no dumb model; she speaks Arabic and is studying
astronomy at a high level. I also have a big thank you to
say to Marty who played the part of my photographic assistant.
Marty actually runs the sound department at Procam Television.
He had exactly the right look for the part. The creepy look
he gave Laura at the ned of the photo shoot was priceless.
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