No, you’re not missing an episode…we are.
I (Claude) have no idea how it happened but our recording for Episode 43 has simply vanished. Having said that, however, Sean and I have committed to re-recording the show and you’ll get it in your feed, just out of order.
In the meantime, here’s Episode 44, which focuses on films that are directed not so much by film directors, but by people who are more conventionally known for their musical careers.
In Part One we have True Stories, from 1986 and directed by David Byrne, who you probably know is the founder of the band Talking Heads. As loose and unformatted as this film appears to be, there was in fact a script. And while many of the characters may seem to be a little weird to the casual observer, it’s their brand of weird and they wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a touching tribute to small-town America. (Trust me, I lived in a Virgil, Texas for five years, only it was in New Jersey.)
From there we move on to Part Two, and a film from 2014 called God Help the Girl, written and directed by Stuart Murdoch. Murdoch is one of the founders of the band Belle and Sebastian, and it’s no small coincidence that “God Help the Girl” was also the name of a 2009 music project that he worked on, where female vocalists sang songs about girls and women. One of the standout voices on that album was Catherine Ireton, who appears on about two-thirds of the tracks in one form or another. At any rate, God Help the Girl (the film) is about a trio of young adults who help each other find direction through their music.
Both of these films use the music to help us get into the singer’s head, but they deviate from “traditional” musicals in that the action doesn’t stop completely while the character is singing. In True Stories the singing is more like dialogue. In fact, in a couple of cases dialogue segues into singing and then back again. In God Help the Girl the characters sometimes may occasionally sing to nobody in particular. But then again it’s part of the action and doesn’t prevent the story from moving forward.
COMING ATTRACTIONS:
Episode 43 is next. Pay attention.