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My favorite Todd tune. Hauntingly cinematic. This was a big reference for us on our score. We attempted to combine elements of Todd’s psychedelic breakdowns with exotica and romantic noirs (Nelson Riddle and Hermann) to capture the mental and emotional landscapes of our subjects. This song felt that way for us. Something that felt more like a dreamscape.
Feb 11, 2021
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This may not be the first song I remember hearing, but it is one of the first I can recall having a visceral reaction to. My mom was an avid soundtrack collector of her favorite movies— The Lost Boys soundtrack often played in my house growing up. One day I was laying on my bed on a dreary afternoon and I remember hearing Jim Morrison’s voice floating up from the downstairs stereo. As he sang faces look ugly when you’re alone I stared into the small faces of the porcelain dolls on my shelf (that my mom insisted I keep on display even though they always made be slightly uncomfortable) until I imagined their faces warping and bending into strange expressions.
Feb 22, 2025
From the cover art to the hellacious guitar racket going on atop the track's spooky tribal drums to lyrics that reference "The Atrocity Exhibition" by J.G. Ballard (a controversial and experimental series of "condensed novels" obsessed with modern celebrity at that time -- 1970 -- including chapters about the Kennedys, Ronald Reagan and Marilyn Monroe), I find this completely unsettling and difficult to get through in one sitting. And it's been that way since I first heard it four decades ago. I've often wondered if the late Ian Curtis meant this song to be a commentary on audiences that came to see the band knowing that he could be gripped by one of his epileptic seizures at any point in their performance -- a true "atrocity exhibition."
Apr 27, 2024
A grotesque, unsettling musical picture of chaos, massacre and lunacy. There were some years since it was released (1980) where I couldn’t listen to it at all.
It's maybe the most unlikely opening track of an album I've ever heard (despite Ian Curtis' repeated chorus: "This is the way, step inside"). It's based upon a 1970 J.G. Ballard collection of short stories of the same name, which imagines a name-changing protagonist who creates surrealistic fantasies about celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and President Ronald Reagan.
One of the first times in recorded music (long before bands like R.E.M. made a regular practice of this) where I can recall band members swapping instruments; guitarist Bernard Sumner plays bass on the track, bassist Peter Hook "plays" guitar (it's basically one long, wobbly noise scribble).
Super disturbing. I'm always amazed that the band could even pull off a live performance of it. Impossibly influential; you can hear the outline of the Cure's "Pornography," the Swans' catalogue, and much of whatever became to be called "tribal" in the DNA of this track.
Sep 22, 2024
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Todd Haynes’ SAFE is one of the best films of the nineties, and it’s a film we referenced a lot during our time on SOME KIND OF HEAVEN for its visual language. Julianne Moore plays Carol, a LA homemaker who inexplicably becomes ill with what seems to be a chronic and extreme aversion to her environment. When mainstream medicine offers no answers, she has to search elsewhere for help. The movie plays as a horror film where the only villains are Carol’s environment and frail body. The movie is engrossing and enigmatic, refusing easy answers and tidy resolutions. And lord knows, it’s become far more relevant today.
Feb 11, 2021
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My favorite Nicholas Ray movie. A Proto-Lynchian descent into madness that picks apart the American dream. I love how subjective the film becomes, as we get closer and closer to a completely unhinged James Mason. A true portrait of a disintegrating man.
Feb 11, 2021
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Larry Sultan’s masterworks. My cinematographer David Bolen and I drew so much from both of these books, not just stylistically but also from Sultan’s process of “riffing off of reality.” These two books informed the look of our film, encouraging us to dig deeper and find the proper visual language that reflected our Utopian setting. We wanted the film to look somewhere between a Sultan photo and the Technicolor sheen in a Douglas Sirk Melodrama.
Feb 11, 2021