Movie ideas #1
Haunted punk bands, conspiracy nuts, the Haitian revolution and more
This week I started work on my second film script. The script centers around an aging punk haunted by a dead member, think the movie Green Room with ghosts. The inspiration came from a gig I played last year with a UK band called The System who have been active since 1979. They have only one member from their original line up, who also happens to be the only member from the original lineup who is still alive. When they told me about this, it occurred to me that if ghosts exist, bands like this must have spirits following round all the time.
The world of older alternative bands still gigging and recording is a surprisingly rich and fertile one, even if playing to a couple of hundred people a night makes that world seem marginal to the average person. It’s a world I’ve had access to that most people don’t know about, so it makes sense to me to write about it. It seems to me that fictionalised dives into these kinds of scenes can get much closer to the truth, and be far more entertaining than the glut of biopics that have hit our screens in recent years. Even outlandish comedies like Spinal Tap and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure resonate so much harder because they have a kind of truth to them that the average big budget biopic will most likely never attain because of the warring interests of big egos and corporate investors. In a similar vein, try the lo fi Canadian movie Hardcore Logo. It’s the only on screen depiction I’ve seen of DIY touring that actually feels like the real thing.
So with this new script, I know how it starts and how it ends. I’ve written about the history of the band and the main characters. I’ve written the first few scenes and they are coming along nicely. I’m not ready to share any of it but if you do want to read some of my first script, you can do so here, here and here.
So for now, here’s some ideas for movies based on real life that I think should be made.
The Haitian Revolution
It is fascinating to me that we don’t get major film adaptions of events like the Haitian revolution but we do get films with names like “12 Years A Slave”. But let’s look at the facts, and imagine what we might be able to do with them. We have quite possibly the biggest successful slave revolt of all time with an international cast of characters, centering around the revolutionary figure of Toussaint Louverture. This man managed to unite the enslaved masses partly by using the ideas of the French enlightenment against the French themselves.
There’s an obvious political issue here. Such a film has been described as potentially “like the film 300 but it’s 2 hours of black people killing white people”. I think it’s always better that people know the truth of such events, even if it makes them feel uncomfortable. However, I also think the controversy could make the film more profitable. People would definitely talk about it.
Saban Bajramovich
Known during his life time as the Frank Sinatra of Eastern European Roma, Saban was a musician that was intensely important to a large group of people but relatively unknown to the rest of the world. Very little is written in English about him, but what we do have is his back catalogue of amazing music which in mind is on par with any musical artist you can name. We also have a collection of stories about his life that just cry out for the big screen treatment.
For instance, Bajramovich is said to have learnt to play music as a homeless child on the streets. Then as a young man he joined the military, only to desert the army to be with the woman he loved . This resulted in him being imprisoned in one of the most notorious goulags of all time. All this took place before his 21st birthday.
Alex Jones
Yeah, the Infowars one. I think he’s a terrible person, but a compelling one. He’s tread a colourful path, going from a questionable but entertaining independent journalist to far right lunatic selling diet pills whilst sprouting a fountain of utter delusion into a million people’s heads. But also this journey tells us a lot about how we got to the political landscape we are living in today. He laid the groundwork for the massive growth in conspiracy theory thinking we’ve seen in the last decade. That stuff ripped lives and families apart. We should all be talking about why that happens.
Steve Rocco (World Industries)
If Louverture and Bajramovich were good guys, and Jones is a bad guy, Rocco is the trickster figure who can be either good or bad depending on your point of view. Rocco started a bunch of skateboard brands in the 90s that not only generated billions of dollars profit but also changed skateboarding for good, having far reaching effects in the world of music, TV and film. However, almost everything he did in that golden period was considered controversial by someone, with provocative ads and graphics as standard.
Thrown into this mix we have the saintly figure of Rodney Mullen, a guy almost the complete opposite of Rocco in his character. Mullen is essentially the Holy Monk of skateboarding, the guy that ascended to the mountain top with a pure heart filled with devotion and came back with dozens of new tricks that became the foundations of what skaters still do now.
So at the heart of the film you have the tension between the devil (Rocco) and the saint (Mullen) who come together to change the world. Against a back drop of all sorts of colourful nineties famous people, like Sonic Youth, Jason Lee or the Jackass crew.
Thank you for reading. Please leave a comment saying what you thought or what you think I should write about next. Also, liking and subscribing helps these words reach a wider audience so please do that too.