On The 4th Day Of Christmas...
I give to thee...FOUR KEY SONGS from the soundtrack to my screenplay, TRUE TALES OF WARLORD TODD...I've been writing and revising Warlord Todd for a bunch of years now, cuz I half-suck, and am half-perfectionist, which is a brutal combination for a creative type, innit? [see "Unsatisfied" below]
In a nutshell, the film takes place in the spring and summer of 1985, in an upper middle-class white suburban town, and concerns a dead body found on a golf course, mistaken identity, revenge, teenaged weed dealers, a biker gang, a Latino drug familia from the big city, unrequited love, teen angst, and New Coke, among others...
The songs I've envisioned being used in various scenes are obviously of the time period covering roughly 1979 to 1985, weighted heavily towards 84/85, and represent the songs and bands and styles of music the young people of that era would have been listening to on the radio or watching on MTV...Typically while working on the screenplay, I'm listening to an MP3 CDr containing approximately 200 songs from that general era, but the final working script will probably utilize 20-30 of those songs, with maybe 6 of those being absolutely crucial to the theme and plot...
Husker Du: "Divide And Conquer"
"Divide & Conquer" plays over the opening title sequence, wherein we zoom in from outer space, to the film's location in Manchester, Wisconsin, and follow a kid on a BMX bike (or possibly a skateboard, but that seems too trite) riding through the town...As the song ends, and the opening credits finish, the biker arrives at his destination, a group of other slacker kids hanging out on the edge of a bandshell in a park downtown, who proceed to talk about the events of the opening scene, which happened just prior to this opening title sequence...This song speaks directly to suburban living in that era, and makes broader statements about homogenized culture, people turning into cattle, etc, and as such makes for a very nice opening song volley...Another Husker Du song, "Turn On The News", also features prominently in a later scene...
Laurie Anderson: "O Superman! (For Massenet)"
At approximately the 10 minute mark there begins a montage which includes scenes of the protagonist Hank (hey, that's me!) doing his job as a golf course groundskeeper, finding a dead body in a sandtrap on that golf course, being questioned by the cops, the cops informing the deceased's family, the body being examined in the morgue, etc...This song plays during that montage, and if our protagonist has a theme song, I suppose this is it...
Devo: "Beautiful World"
The film's antagonist and titular character, Warlord Todd, is an unabashed DEVO fanatic, and so several Devo songs are used throughout the film...This Devo song, in particular though, fully captures the classism that underpins the reality of Manchester, WI in 1985, not to mention the heirarchy of the high school... "It's a beautiful world for you...Not me..."
The Replacements: "Unsatisfied"
In some ways, this song might represents one of the major ideas/themes running throughout this movie - the question of how or why these people, who have it pretty damn good in this life, are still not satisfied with what they have...They have money, health, possessions, love, sex, drugs, security...and yet they're empty, and feel cheated by life, the government, God. Some of these people retreat back into a very small corner, while others lash out violently at the world around them...
Hotcha! Hank
In a nutshell, the film takes place in the spring and summer of 1985, in an upper middle-class white suburban town, and concerns a dead body found on a golf course, mistaken identity, revenge, teenaged weed dealers, a biker gang, a Latino drug familia from the big city, unrequited love, teen angst, and New Coke, among others...
The songs I've envisioned being used in various scenes are obviously of the time period covering roughly 1979 to 1985, weighted heavily towards 84/85, and represent the songs and bands and styles of music the young people of that era would have been listening to on the radio or watching on MTV...Typically while working on the screenplay, I'm listening to an MP3 CDr containing approximately 200 songs from that general era, but the final working script will probably utilize 20-30 of those songs, with maybe 6 of those being absolutely crucial to the theme and plot...
Husker Du: "Divide And Conquer"
"Divide & Conquer" plays over the opening title sequence, wherein we zoom in from outer space, to the film's location in Manchester, Wisconsin, and follow a kid on a BMX bike (or possibly a skateboard, but that seems too trite) riding through the town...As the song ends, and the opening credits finish, the biker arrives at his destination, a group of other slacker kids hanging out on the edge of a bandshell in a park downtown, who proceed to talk about the events of the opening scene, which happened just prior to this opening title sequence...This song speaks directly to suburban living in that era, and makes broader statements about homogenized culture, people turning into cattle, etc, and as such makes for a very nice opening song volley...Another Husker Du song, "Turn On The News", also features prominently in a later scene...
Laurie Anderson: "O Superman! (For Massenet)"
At approximately the 10 minute mark there begins a montage which includes scenes of the protagonist Hank (hey, that's me!) doing his job as a golf course groundskeeper, finding a dead body in a sandtrap on that golf course, being questioned by the cops, the cops informing the deceased's family, the body being examined in the morgue, etc...This song plays during that montage, and if our protagonist has a theme song, I suppose this is it...
Devo: "Beautiful World"
The film's antagonist and titular character, Warlord Todd, is an unabashed DEVO fanatic, and so several Devo songs are used throughout the film...This Devo song, in particular though, fully captures the classism that underpins the reality of Manchester, WI in 1985, not to mention the heirarchy of the high school... "It's a beautiful world for you...Not me..."
The Replacements: "Unsatisfied"
In some ways, this song might represents one of the major ideas/themes running throughout this movie - the question of how or why these people, who have it pretty damn good in this life, are still not satisfied with what they have...They have money, health, possessions, love, sex, drugs, security...and yet they're empty, and feel cheated by life, the government, God. Some of these people retreat back into a very small corner, while others lash out violently at the world around them...
Hotcha! Hank
Labels: Devo, Husker Du, Laurie Anderson, mp3, music, The Replacements, Warlord Todd
posted by Hank Mohaski at 4:20 AM
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