[...]But it had been assembled artfully, like the looped film of traffic on LA freeways drawing out the beauty of this perpetual motion sculpture. Or time-lapsed shadows and sunlight passing across buildings, slowed down or reversed, ….. Yeah Simon, …

Tried the Fowles decades ago but it didn’t ring any of my bells, and I have many, some about to be distributed among the trees of a small Greek island. There may be a book about my criminal noise exploits in a few years… I’m still fording through Pynchon’s Against the Day, then it’s on with the latest Ondaatje.

Currently waltzing to the latest from Nine Rain, VI, Steven Brown’s spin-off from Tuxedomoon. Kinda Ballardian if you sit and think about it, and definitely recommended to anyone who finds Simon’s playlist cool.

Sto kalo…

Never mind The Unlimited Dream Company, Jack – you might be in the right place for living out the plot of The Magus, or even Malpertuis…

Yeah, I gave their first album, We Buy a Hammer for Daddy, five stars in Sounds about three million years ago… secluded on a small Greek island I don’t really keep up with their later careers, but know that Danielle Dax is still in action, and I last heard of Karl Blake in his band The Shockheaded Peters…

Ian Parkinson asked above whether he hails from Burnley. I believe he’s from Chorley originally. The brother of a friend of mine had him as a tutor at Leeds University. I hope he won’t mind me quoting from his email:

“Nice man, was practising as an illustrator at the time (1990-93) and was using Harry and Quantel Paintbox to create montages from his photographs. He was one of the first along with Dave McKean to really effectively use the floated images and layers of gold leaf and photographic source material, which was then copied relentlessly and badly by all publishers. He did a shed load of book covers around that time, all of which looked virtually identical. He’d take a photo of some ivy, a Roman bust, rusty metal or some other tat – overlay them (pre-Photoshop) and hey presto, a new Ian McEwan cover. He was very bitter about Midge Ure from memory.”

Who isn’t? I’m bitter about Midge Ure and I’ve never met the bloke. My introduction to JG Ballard was via music, funnily enough. As an SF-reading teenager I was aware of him, but it took Graeme Revell mentioning him in an interview with SPK in about 1983 for me to finally check him out. The first Ballard book I read was Myths Of The Near Future and I was instantly bowled over by the sheer otherworldliness and dreamlike quality infusing every sentence. His was the first writing prior to discovering William Burroughs a year or so later that I tried deconstructing to see the wiring under the board, so to speak. It was a case of “how the HELL does he do that??” I instantly made the Metamatic connection, and, as mentioned on another thread, there’s Joy Division’s “Atrocity Exhibition”. And wasn’t The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds LP some obscure reference to that as well, or did I just hallucinate that?

Jamie Sherry makes a good point about the “post-modern casting” thing. One of the greatest examples of this to my mind is Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, coming just a couple of years after Hannibal Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. Genius. Larry Hagman’s reptilian Texas oilman obviously played on the JR association too.

On the subject of Mr Leigh’s cheekbones again: I’m sure JGB would approve. Oh, the geometry….

Yeah Simon, I bet they do take forever to try and gather the information. I was trying to do a piece on the artist/writer/arch-prankster Stewart Home and the issue of identity and got lost in obfuscation, trying to work out what is real from what is not, what is playful fibs, and what is truth. Ended up binning it because it just got too difficult and annoying.
Yes, studied under Guy at the University of Wolverhampton, and he introduced me to a lot of great stuff, not least the magical Berlin Horse by Eno.

Yes, do not want to hijack this very interesting Foxx thread with the much discussed Kubrick, but yes I agree that Anderson’s near-future, insitution critiquing Trilogy of films really do seem to inhabit the same universe as Clockwork Orange. The parallels between the films are huge, and seem very deliberate. The confrontation of Travis by the police at the start of O Lucky Man harks back to the police retribution scene in Clockwork Orange. And yes, in particular the casting of Warren Clarke seems like a strong association.

So you studied under Guy? You lucky fellow! I agree, he does have a touch of genius about him.

Re: McDowell in Clockwork Orange and O Lucky Man! I always saw the latter as set in the same kind of near-future, bleak UK as Kubrick’s film… kind of a parallel universe that is just as despairing and just as hopeless, a world in which Alex, instead of becoming an uber-hooligan, became a coffee salesman — yet every bit as anarchic. Having suggested to Malcolm that he portray Alex with the same mannerisms as Mick Travis in If…, I strongly believe Lindsay Anderson was then utilising the process in reverse in O Lucky Man!, drawing on the incredible power of Clockwork to make similar points about Britain and its totalitarian tendencies.

This ‘parallel universe’ effect in O Lucky Man is highlighted by Anderson’s casting of not only McDowell, but also Warren Clarke and Philip Stone, all Clockwork alumni.

Stanley K did apparently refer to If… when directing Malcolm McDowell, asking him to give a look he gave the prefects in the earlier film.

On a side note, and with fear of name clanging, I was taught ‘film as fine art’ under Guy Sherwin, and I am sure he would be delighted but embarrassed to be called an “old master.” I have fond memories of being shown very long experimental art-films amongst a class of very, very stoned, hungover and bored students who were only studying film in order to make ‘Lock, Stock..’ again. I felt sorry for him. I thought he was some kind of genius.

John Coulthart – I love the idea of that meta-film, you should do it. Have you ever seen that short film which cuts up some films, splitting the screen (I think) into 16 blocks all showing different films, and all show someone being shot at exactly the same time?
I am very interested in the way actors are used in a film in a way that echoes or references their appearance in a precursor film. There are some great examples of this, not least the use of Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s ‘O Lucky Man!’ after ‘Clockwork Orange’ (which itself seems to reference ‘If…’ quite explicitly).
Hitchcock’s use of Janet Leigh in ‘Psycho’ has many, many references to ‘Touch of Evil’, but also casting of Heston as a Mexican (?) after he appeared in the seminal ‘Ten Commandments’ seems like madness. Speaking of which, Welles’ casting of himself as the horribly washed-out, corrupt, over-weight Quinlan seems like an act of self-deprecating honesty. Oh yeah, I love that film.

Ian, are you going by John’s accent in that video? I have no idea what someone from Burnley would sound like!

I’m looking forward to reading this later in the evening. Where’s John Foxx from? I’d guess Burnley…..

The Man Made of Shadows concept reminded me of a similar idea I had years ago for collaging a “meta-film” from Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate and Touch of Evil using Janet Leigh’s presence in each as a connecting thread. I still have a diagram somewhere showing the many connections between the separate works. This could no doubt be expanded by drawing in other films made around the same time with a similar style and atmosphere.

Also: “Chris Marker” is another persona, the film-maker’s real name being Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve.

Not sure why it failed to print from the web – I’ve not had a problem before and some of those must have had YouTube in them. Mind you I’m still using IE6 …

Super stuff. So glad you enjoyed the show.
We have corresponded briefly before. If you need any other John Foxx info (archives, etc) just let me know