Below is the latest press release for the forthcoming
DNA Exhibition at
The Horse Hospital next month. This includes a partial interview with the renowned director
Alex Proyas who met with
John on set during the filming of his new film
Knowing during John and Louis' tour of Australia last May.
*****
JOHN FOXX: DNA Exhibition, Horse Hospital, London on Monday the 27th of July, 2009.
If I could only make a movie as textured and evocative as John Foxx's music I would be a happy man, says
Alex Proyas, the director of
I, Robot,
The Crow,
Dark City and
Knowing - this year's Number 1 Box Office hit in both the UK and the States.
Proyas is the first contributor to be announced for the forthcoming
DNA Exhibition which celebrates
John Foxx's influence on a wide selection of musicians, film-makers, visual artists, graphic designers and even Manga comics. The Australian director's film,
GROPING, is one of a number of short films that will shown through the week-long event.
According to
Proyas;
The film I made at film school, inspired by John's music - really from a mainly stylistic and atmospheric perspective - is called GROPING. When it was shown at the Sydney Film Festival in the early 80's I used a section of lyrics from the early Ultravox track, Quiet Men in the programme... [i]"Waiting, we were waiting, as the traffic moved..." etc, which I found strangely fitting to the narrative... actually I almost called the film
Waiting at one point. The film is about the brutal rape / murder of Kitty Genovese in NYC in the 60's but done in a very post-modern style.[/i]
John Foxx's Underpass is an absolutely seminal inspiration to me, he adds.
While making Groping I actually heard Underpass for the very first time - remember it clearly - it was actually on my little bedside radio alarm very late one night - the only source of music I had in my share household room and I used to play an alternative music station here in Sydney while writing my scripts. This incredible piece of music came on and it captured me from the first riff - it seemed someone had made music from the sounds of the city traffic, that struck me immediately. I turned up the radio and listened enthralled and waited to hear who the artist was. The vocals seemed familiar but I didn't at first recognize them. When they announced John Foxx I was so excited as I obviously recognized him from Ultravox, the band I was so impressed with.I think there's also definitely a link with John's music to my film Dark City (and probably to anything I make!). Dark City had its origins in an early script I wrote at film school at the time I was particularly enthralled by Ultravox's Systems of Romance . I imagined the opening titles would be underscored by Slow Motion. And Dislocation featured in a sequence where the detective hero is slipped a drug and has an hallucinogenic episode. So while Dark City was not specifically influenced I think the spirit of the early Ultravox and John's Metamatic album is definitely in there.I think apart from his incredibly cinematic lyrics - John's music always conjured entire movies in my head when I listened to it - I think it is his mastery of atmosphere that has most stayed with me through the years. If I could only make a movie as textured and evocative as John's music I would be a happy man.John Foxx, the man behind
Ultravox's first three post-punk albums and his electro solo masterpiece
Metamatic (described as
visionary by the
Klaxons), has provided new music for some of the new
DNA pieces. This follows his contributions to a series of collaborative albums due for release this year -
A Secret Life (with
Steve Jansen and
Steve D'Agostino), the debut album by
Leftfield's
Paul Daley and the critically acclaimed
Mirrorball (with
Robin Guthrie), which was described as a
breathtakingly beautiful in the
NME and by
Q as featuring the
best of both their recent works: Foxx's epic, sepulchral grandstanding and Guthrie's intricate, filmic soundscaping.*****
Rob
