Tag: Alan Parker

Reel 47: Concept Album Musicals

Words and Movies Episode 47 cover, featuring Pink Floyd's The Wall and Quadrophenia

At last! The last of our “lost” episodes. It’s also almost the end of our run of music-based episodes. This time around we’re sitting in the screening room and looking at a pair of films based on concept rock albums.

First up is 1979’s Quadrophenia, based on the 1973 album of the same name by The Who. It  was directed by Frank Roddam and stars Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash. It’s a period piece, set in 1964, and it outlines the days leading up to a wild weekend for Mods and Rockers both. A fun side benefit of this episode is that my 11-month-old grandson is sitting on my lap for the first two-thirds of our discussion. So this is his podcasting debut, and as it happens, his diaper leaked during recording so I was working with my leg soaked with pee. (Was that too much information? Eh. It’s what you deal with when you’re dealing with the babies.)

From there we jump to 1982 and Pink Floyd—The Wall, based on the 1979 album The Wall by Pink Floyd. This film was directed by Alan Parker, but credit also has to be given to Gerald Scarfe, who produced the brilliant animated segments. Those animations take up a full 15 minutes of the 100 minute running time, so they’re no trifle. And we get so loquacious during this episode that we actually cross the 60-minute mark, once you account for music and Rebecca doing her bit.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

Next time, we wrap up the musical films with a view from the fan’s perspective. First we start with Almost Famous, a film we’ve wanted to discuss almost since Episode One. Then it’s on to 24-Hour Party People, a truly quirky film from 2002 about the early days of New Wave music.

 

Reel 43: Dublin Calling

It’s the Lost Episode! Sean and I went back and re-recorded this episode. Fortunately I store hardcopies of the film synopses, and Sean takes a ton of notes, and I do my usual blundering in between, and I’m pretty positive that we covered literally everything that we covered the first time around, with the exception of something I actually added that wasn’t there previously (it’s something I said at the end of the first segment).

This time, we’re looking at a pair of musicals set in the city of Dublin, Ireland. Our first film is 1991’s The Commitments, directed by Alan Parker. It’s the story of a group that aspires to become a soul band in the 1960s Stax/Atlantic tradition. That said, I don’t think it’s 100% clear that the film is set any earlier than the 1980s. No matter, though: it’s a fun movie, especially if you’re fond of that F-bomb. (Heh.)

From there we move forward to 2007, and a film called Once, written and directed by John Carney. It’s the story of a couple of musicians who find each other. And they discover that they’re yearning for something more than what they have in their lives. Whether or not that’s each other is something that’s explored during the film. You’ll find yourself rooting for them as a couple. Never mind that there are some perfectly good reasons not to do that.

While both films have the commonality of being set in Dublin, there’s another thing about them that many fans have suggested. We discuss it briefly in the second half of the show, and while it’s plausible, there’s really nothing anywhere to back it up. But it’s a truly fun coincidence, assuming it is one.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

In our next episode, we look at two musical films that are period pieces. Specifically, they take place shortly before a seismic shift in the music scene. First, from 2007 is the criminally-underrated Honeydripper,  written and directed by John Sayles, and from there we move on to 2014’s Inside Llewyn Davis, written and directed by the Coen Brothers.