Comments on: J.G. Ballard: The Oracle of Shepperton

By: ruthy mandry

ruthy mandry — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:19:03 +0000

heh ‘The taxi driver, who is French speaking, tells Thomas he needs clearance to visit Shepperton, which is now the ‘new capital of the galaxy’,’ i lived in shepperton from 0 to 22 1977-2002 and for those years, yes it was the centre of the known galaxy ;¬)

By: Ian Parkinson

Ian Parkinson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:31:55 +0000

I love the, er …. film. The short-sequence montage technique has been used in some recent brilliant documentaries on British TV about the American/British invasion of Iraq, and it’s done brilliantly here, too. It’s a sort of cut-up technique that builds up layers of seemingly random images, all of which conveys a sense of alienation, to me. The music was brilliant, too – very like Badalamenti’s work on Lynch’s stuff, and a bit like Radiohead here and there. The actor playing JGB’s voiceover is really good as well, but he definately has a French inflection – he sounds like a french Dr Spock to me. Casting someone that works professionally at corporate meetings was a master stroke – you can really hear it in his voice (despite the French Dr Spock).

By: Thomas Cazals

Thomas Cazals — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:15:17 +0000

I conceived the movie like a kind of musical concept album. The music and sound design are done by a french musician and artist Eric Pajot aka The Agent (http://www.myspace.com/disc_over)… that’s why there is also a strange video ghost track on the file at the end
The Oracle’s voice is from a very serious irish man Clive Richardson his real job is simultaneous translator in big corporate meeting or international conferences like ONU. I like very much his job on the movie, he didn’t know Ballard’s works before doing the voice in the movie.

By: TimC

TimC — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:07:00 +0000

Keep watching (or shift forward) past the end credits for a couple of minutes – there’s bonus retro-striptease footage, as sampled in the film, which plays out in eerie silence. I’m now a fan of Naughty-Naughty Annette.

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:06:02 +0000

i meant in terms of gravitas it’s an excellent impersonation, if not note perfect. i didn’t notice any french inflection, though.

’saucy hidden track’… do tell!

By: TimC

TimC — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:43:21 +0000

This is excellent. I’m not convinced that the “Oracle’s Voice” narrator does a particularly good job of impersonating Ballard, though – he seems to have a slight but distinct French inflection (odd, as the actor seems to have a British name, Clive Richardson). That’s not a real complaint – together with some other, possibly not entirely intentional, instances of cross-Channel confusion (the left-hand-drive imaginary cars, the rather erratic subtitles), it adds to the general sense of dislocation.

I like the saucy ‘hidden track’ as well…