Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
This mix linked above was one of my very first as the mixes were not something I started even when I first started Music Mondays.
Many of the early mixes were made in study rooms in Sangren Hall of WMU as I worked on computer programming and/or Calculus. There was a big monitor, and I could plug in my computer.
When I made this mix, I wondered if Massive Attack and Young Fathers made this film-like video (like an excerpt from a film) or if this video sequence was taken from a movie that I had not seen and did not know; however, I did not bother to investigate using the power of the Internet.
Recently, a friend on Facebook started posting this March music challenge with a different prompt each day for a song. One was a "song about drugs or alcohol." After dismissing the obvious choices, this song popped into my head. I really think that this song has some kind of addiction at its root. I could be wrong. The "Voodoo" in the blood is the drug. Interpret away from there.
I am happy to learn that Massive Attack and Young Fathers made this video sequence but it is based on a movie I now have to watch.
The cult inspirations behind Massive Attack’s new video
A horror film banned in the UK until 1999 provided the inspiration for the new cut starring Rosamund Pike
Midnight movie fans may have experienced a nagging sense of deja vu watching the spectacularly creepy video for Massive Attack’s “Voodoo in My Blood”, premiered on Wednesday. That’s because it was inspired by the notorious ‘subway scene’ in Possession, the eye-poppingly strange horror masterpiece from late Polish director Andrzej Żuławski, who passed away last week from cancer.
Surely the only so-called ‘video nasty’ to strike gold at Cannes (for Isabelle Adjani’s elegantly unhinged work in the lead role), the film was banned in the UK until 1999 – but that didn’t stop Ringan Ledwidge from snaffling it up at the tender age of 12. Now, the young horror fanatic-turned music video director has put his misspent youth to good use by using the film’s most famous sequence – along with other treasured cult references – as a jumping-off point for the Bristol trip hop legends’ latest video, aided by a fearless turn from Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike. Here, he talks us through some of his inspirations for the video, and why he felt like he was seeing something he “shouldn’t be seeing” during the shoot.
POSSESSION
I’m a huge fan of the film Possession. As a kid I was obsessed with (lead actress) Isabelle Adjani, and would watch absolutely anything with her in it. I must have discovered the film when I was about 12, and it absolutely blew my mind. That particular scene in the film is insane. It’s so riveting yet so disturbing at the same time, it’s so original and different and… strange. It’s still to this day a film I’ll implore anyone I see to go and watch it. I can’t believe the irony of the fact that the director died last week. It seems appropriate in a strange way that it’s come out when it has, as a celebration of what he did as a filmmaker. It’s quite special.
TECHNOLOGY
The lyrics on the track talk about voodoo and possession and so on, but (the way the idea for the video came about) was actually quite bizarre… I’d been thinking a lot about technology – about how it’s very seductive and sexy, but also very benign until you engage with it, and how that engagement takes over your life. In a funny way it is sort of like possession. I mean, I’m a big tech-head as well, but it kind of enthrals me and terrifies me in equal measure.
PHANTASM
(Along with Possession), Phantasm was another movie that just kind of sprung to mind for the video – without consciously seeking them out, they both seemed to resonate. So I used those films as a leaping-off point to try and create something different out of these two huge influences I had when I was a kid. With Phantasm, I wanted to use the intimidating orb thing (the sphere in the video looks a lot like the one that terrorises the cast in Don Coscarelli’s 1979 cult-classic horror) to represent this beautiful, sexy technology. And unbeknownst to me a lot of what Massive Attack were doing on their new record was exploring those themes of technology and how it affects us, so it must have connected with them.
ROSAMUND PIKE
It’s not a role that you would traditionally associate Rosamund with, quite often I think she hasn’t been given the chance to explore herself as an actress. Until recently you might have thought of her in a period movie or something like that, but then she did Gone Girl and you’re like, ‘Holy shit, she’s really capable of some dark stuff.’ So I thought if Rosamund really went for it, and went as balls-out mental as she would need to, she could be a really interesting, really surprising choice. She rehearsed for a couple of days with this great movement coach called Scarlet Mackmin who works with the National Theatre, she wanted to be really prepared for the part. When she came on set and we did the first full run-through it blew all the crew away. You hope it’s gonna be like that, but when you actually see it it’s kind of electrifying to watch. For an actress you’ve got to be brave, because you’re doing things that are gonna make you look ugly or weird in certain moments, and if you’re not committed it ends up not looking great. But she really nailed it – we built foam tile walls she could slam into, but she was still pretty bruised and exhausted by the end. It was disturbing and scary and sexy all at the same time. You felt like you were seeing something you shouldn’t really be seeing.
70s COLOUR SCHEMES
We chose the Joe Strummer underpass at Edgware Road station to shoot in because I love the yellows, pinks and oranges down there, it’s almost like a sweet box. To me it felt like the colours kind of played against what was about to happen. I love 70s movies and I wanted to do a kind of John Cassavetes, Stanley Kubrick thing – the subway in Possession is much grimier, but I didn’t want it to be too dark, you have all these colours in there that you don’t naturally associate with horror. Which made it all the more disturbing, strangely.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2403.11 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3174 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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