𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎 & 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐌𝐒: 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐬

In this part of my series, let’s take a closer look at the movies which had an impact on creating of some Placebo videos.

Photo credit: screenshots of the videos, film posters / edit by Olga

𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 is a film that was an inspiration for the 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 video.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐 told, “It was inspired by the Grace Kelly film ‘Fourteen Hours’ from the 50's about a guy who stands on the ledge of a building in New York for 14 hours. The police, his parents and his wife come and try to talk him down. You never really know why he’s there. It’s a very good film, check it out. We based the story on that.”
(“𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔” 𝐷𝑉𝐷, 2004)
𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 is a 1951 American noir drama directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York City police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the 15th floor of a hotel.
It was the screen debut of Grace Kelly and Jeffrey Hunter, who appeared in small roles. The screenplay was based on an article in The New Yorker describing the 1938 real story of John William Warde suicide.
Noteworthy, the Pure Morning video has got an opposite ending. “And it also has a very important meaning that I don’t die in the end. It shows some hope, I think,” 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 said. (𝑆𝑈𝐵, 1999)

Screenshot from Pure morning video

𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐍
Telling about 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐔𝐬 video in the Once more with feeling DVD Brian said that "there’s a ‘Delicatessen’ feel to this."
𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧 is a 1991 French surrealist black comedy directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.
The film is centered on a post-apocalyptic society where food is in short supply and grain is used as currency. It’s set in a dilapidated apartment building with a delicatessen, a butcher's shop, on the ground floor. It’s run by the landlord, Clapet, who posts job opportunities in the Hard Times paper as means to lure victims to the building, whom he murders and butchers as a cheap source of meat to sell to his tenants. Butcher's daughter and a former clown Louison, who applies for the job, fall in love. Aware of her father's motives, Julie tries to rescue Louison by contacting the "troglodytes", a group of vegetarian rebel sub-group of society who live entirely underground.

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐁𝐀𝐃 / 𝐋'𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐞́𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐞̀𝐫𝐞 𝐚̀ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐛𝐚𝐝 is a movie behind a story of the 𝐓𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐞𝐧 video.
“…I took inspiration from a film I love, L'Année dernière à Marienbad ('Last Year at Marienbad'),” 𝑩𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝑴𝒄𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉, director of the video, explained, “Not only was the film's enigmatic narrative structure helpful to look at when creating an ambiguous love affair, but the sort of cyclical quality of the track mirrored this kind of repetitive film device. The video had layers of questionable events - did any of it actually happen and if so, with which one. This kind of fragmented reality was a direct nod to that film but something that I thought fit with the band's image of ambiguity at that time.” (𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡, 2017)
𝐋'𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐞́𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐞̀𝐫𝐞 𝐚̀ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐛𝐚𝐝 (𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐛𝐚𝐝) is a 1961 French-Italian film directed by Alain Resnais.
Set in luxury baroque hotel, it’s a tale of a woman and a man who may have met the year before at Marienbad and may have contemplated or started an affair. There is a second man who may be the woman's husband. The characters are unnamed. Through ambiguous flashbacks and disorienting shifts of time and location, the film explores the relationships between the three characters.
The film is famous for its enigmatic narrative structure, in which time and space are fluid. No certain conclusion is offered: what is happening to the characters, what they are remembering, and what they are imagining.
The same dreamlike nature was perfectly recreated in Placebo video.

Screenshot from Taste in men video

𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐀 is a film that was an inspiration for the 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐠𝐞 video.
According to 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏, “aesthetically it was by a film ‘Gattaca’ starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. It was the film where they met and first fell in love.”
“Cold, beautifully stylish near future, not sci-fi,” described the atmosphere of the video its director 𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒈𝒉, “Is it sci-fi, is it whatever? Is it a love story? … If it's not the case, let's build like 'Gattaca', people, they are almost automats in the office – machine or computers but there is one girl who suddenly decides… And ok, that creates a knock-on catalyst effect. So, it started to shred everything, shred, shred, shred… It was colourful, simple and powerful.” (𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡, 2016)
𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐚 is a 1997 American science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.
The film's title is based on the letters G, A, T, and C, which stand for guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA.

𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐕𝐎𝐘𝐀𝐆𝐄 is a film that influenced the making of 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐊 video.
“This is one of my favorites videos.” 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 told. “It’s based on a 60’s movie ‘Fantastic Voyage’. Raquel Welch and a few other people get shrunk and injected into the president’s body and try to save his life. In this video I play Raquel Welch. Unfortunately, the budget didn’t stretch to fake breasts.”
𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒈𝒉 who directed the video for Placebo explained his idea, “It was based on a movie, obviously 'Fantastic voyage'. And I always thought that Stefan looked like an android. I remember a guy from 'Fantastic voyage' turned out to be an android and he was trying to kill everybody. And I thought: 'This is twisted. Let try a mini movie which is all about inside something'.” (𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡, 2016)
𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐕𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐠𝐞 is a 1966 American science-fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer. The film is about a submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. Almost as soon as they enter the bloodstream, a lot of problems arise on their way.

Screenshot from Special K video

𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒: clips from this film are used in one of the versions of 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐌𝐞 video besides the live footage of Placebo from London's Brixton Academy.

𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 & 𝐉𝐎𝐄: the scenes from the movie are included in the 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤-𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐝 video. It was directed by the same director as the film, Vanessa Joop. The video was filmed at the Hurricane Festival in Germany with two actors, Jana Pallaske and Robert Stadlober, starring in Engel & Joe.

Post by  Olga