{"id":16122,"date":"2021-03-16T08:45:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T15:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=16122"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:16:58","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:16:58","slug":"belle-sebastian-go-to-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/belle-sebastian-go-to-the-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Belle & Sebastian Go to the Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The music of Belle and Sebastian sounds like a movie for the ears. Stuart Murdoch\u2019s wry, exquisitely detailed lyrics can fold a novel\u2019s worth of character, setting, conflict, and resolution into the standard three-minute pop song format. Riffs and melodies carry over from song to song the way motifs reappear in film scores, and violin stings and woodwind trills suggest mid-century film scores. Even the monochromatic portraits that appear on their record sleeves look like stills from a beloved, unjustly forgotten kitchen sink melodrama or French new wave feature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If You\u2019re Feeling Sinister,<\/em> Belle and Sebastian\u2019s breakthrough album, hit record store shelves a few months after Wes Anderson\u2019s debut feature Bottle Rocket<\/em> premiered. The band has yet to work with the director, but they share his retro sensibility and fondness for obscure 1960s singles. Both Belle and Sebastian and Wes Anderson were seen as early proponents of the twee indie subculture that took root in the early 2000s, and as Anderson\u2019s films found a cult audience, the band\u2019s songs started appearing as needle drops in montage sequences that evoked scenes from Anderson\u2019s movies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few movies with single-artist soundtracks like About A Boy<\/em> became sleeper hits in the late 1990s, Belle and Sebastian signed on to write a song score for Todd Solondz\u2019s third feature, Storytelling.<\/em>  The pairing of band and filmmaker didn\u2019t seem like a natural fit; Belle & Sebastian\u2019s mid-century twist on college rock and the pragmatic optimism of Murdoch\u2019s lyrics seemed out of sync with Solondz\u2019s dour worldview and tacky, 1980s New Jersey aesthetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This tonal mismatch, combined with a troubled postproduction process, meant that only six minutes of the band\u2019s music made the final cut. \u201cTodd kept saying, \u2018I love it all, but it\u2019s not right for the movie\u2019,\u201d trumpeter Mick Cooke recalled in the liner notes for the Belle & Sebastian album Storytelling<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> \u201cWe just didn\u2019t know what was right for the movie.\u201d The music that did make the cut gave the film a campy tone, as in the jaunty fanfare that plays under a scene where the housekeeper leaves the home of the family that fired her. After a blackly farcical ending that would have been tragic in any other movie, the sweet female vocals, lush production, and lyrical metacommentary of closing credits song \u201cStorytelling\u201d extends the mean-spirited feel of the final scene. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the arch lyrics for Storytelling<\/em>\u2019s title song landed with a thud, it also highlighted something Stuart Murdoch does well in his verses. Many of the band\u2019s most beloved songs are about the life-changing power of popular music; \u201cGet Me Away from Here I\u2019m Dying\u201d<\/a> and \u201cLike Dylan in the Movies\u201d<\/a> evoke the feeling of being seen in the lyrics of a pop song, while \u201cJudy and the Dream of Horses\u201d<\/a> portrays a young woman who puts her life into perspective through songwriting. This awareness of the ways narrative works and the tension between life and art played a role in God Help the Girl,<\/em> Murdoch\u2019s directorial debut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Kickstarter story for God Help the Girl<\/em><\/a>, the idea for the film came from a song. \u201cSeven years ago, Stuart was out for a run and a tune came into his head which didn’t sound like Belle & Sebastian. It was sung by a girl, and soon, one tune led to another. Then Eve started to talk, James came along, then Cassie, and as all of their thoughts evolved, so did a girl group sound and a sense that it wanted to be a film, a musical.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The resulting film unspools like an MGM musical made by a member of the Cahiers du Cinema<\/em> staff. After being hospitalized for anorexia, Eve (Emily Browning) meets music teacher James (Olly Alexander) at a basement gig in Glasgow. James introduces Eve to his student Cassie (Hannah Murray) and the three begin writing songs and form a band inspired by classic girl singers and groups. Putting pen to paper helps Eve process what\u2019s happened to her and allows her to chart a path in her adult life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murdoch\u2019s strong (if somewhat derivative) visual style guides God Help the Girl<\/em>. The streets of Glasgow explode in a riot of primary color, and tinsel-trimmed back rooms at RAF halls take on a glamorously grimy allure under moody, green-tinted lighting. Naturalistic performances from the three protagonists complement the more stylized visuals and musical numbers that obliquely gesture at the fourth wall. Browning in particular looks like she could have jumped off the cover of a Belle & Sebastian album, and her unfussy line readings and awkward baby-giraffe gait give the character a palpable sense of vulnerability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film comes to life with smaller musical numbers as the characters get to know one another and learn to write songs together. Murdoch\u2019s ability to write about the role pop music can play in young people\u2019s lives makes scenes like the band\u2019s early meet-cute even more engaging, and a mid-film scene where Eve makes her stage debut has a lived-in feel that\u2019s probably informed by Murdoch\u2019s experiences with his band. By contrast, stretches between musical numbers feel long, and Eve\u2019s dalliance with the caddish Anton (Pierre Boulanger) seems contrived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

God Help the Girl<\/em> was a modest indie success on its 2014 release, but Murdoch wasn\u2019t ready to give up his day job. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be in a position to direct something I hadn\u2019t written, or at least originated,\u201d he told the Guardian<\/em> on the film\u2019s release<\/a>. \u201cYou could get 50 other guys who would do a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two decades after the release of Storytelling<\/em>, Belle & Sebastian took another turn at writing a song score, this time for an adaptation of the graphic novel Days of the Bagnold Summer<\/em>. The two films have some similarities; they\u2019re both episodic features that follow average middle-class characters, and they both have a deadpan, observational sense of humor. However, director Simon Bird and screenwriter Lisa Owens have a more redemptive worldview than the fatalistic Solondz, and the themes of the film seem more harmonious with the perspective from which Stuart Murdoch writes his lyrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Days of the Bagnold Summer <\/em>follows Sue Bagnold (Monica Dolan), a middle-aged librarian, who unexpectedly has to take care of her saturnine teenage son Daniel (Earl Cave) over a long summer. Neither character wants to understand the other\u2014Sue sees Daniel as lazy and is judgmental of his love of heavy metal music, while Daniel is embarrassed by his mother\u2019s dowdy style and wry sense of humor. As the story progresses, the pair slowly learn to respect and show affection for one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice of Belle & Sebastian for the score is a canny one. As director, Simon Bird shares Stuart Murdoch\u2019s understated comic timing and eye for detail, and protagonist Sue Bagnold\u2019s frumy appearance and perceptible feeling of being adrift make her seem like a character in a Belle & Sebastian song. The band\u2019s music is used organically throughout the film\u2014an early montage depicting a typical day at Sue\u2019s library is scored to fan favorite \u201cGet Me Away from Here, I\u2019m Dying\u201d, while lesser-known songs by the band appear later on in the film. Belle & Sebastian\u2019s gentle, melodic music contrasts with the thrash metal Daniel favors, at times grounding us in Sue\u2019s perspective. The music cues the band wrote for the Days of the Bagnold Summer<\/em> give it the feeling of being a little unstuck in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days of the Bagnold Summer<\/em> was released in the UK just before the lockdown, and Belle & Sebastian released a live album at the end of last year. There are no current plans for any new film work by the band, but they have left us with many movies for the ears and the mind\u2026 as well as a few for the eyes. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A survey of the beloved Scottish band\u2019s forays into film music and filmmaking, and how their music lends itself to the movies of the moment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":16126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-16122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22548,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16122\/revisions\/22548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}