Blank Generation | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ulli Lommel |
Written by | Richard Hell Ulli Lommel Robert Madero |
Produced by | Roger Deutsch |
Starring | Carole Bouquet Richard Hell |
Cinematography | Atze Glanert |
Music by | Elliot Goldenthal, Richard Hell |
Distributed by | International Harmony |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Blank Generation is a 1980 American-produced music film, directed and co-written by Ulli Lommel. It stars Carole Bouquet, Richard Hell, and Suzanna Love. [1]
French journalist Nada Lumiere and rising New York City musician Billy have a volatile relationship, frequently fighting and breaking up and then reuniting shortly after. Both have a detached approach to relationships, with Billy prone to violent mood swings and Nada often preferring to communicate with Billy via videotapes she films of herself. Billy and his band have signed with Jack and his financial backer Kellerman for an overall management and record deal, but Billy endangers it by abandoning a concert performance. Nada takes an extended break from Billy, claiming to be out of town on an assignment, to reconnect with an earlier lover and journalist colleague, Hoffritz, who comes to New York pursuing an interview with artist Andy Warhol.
In her absence, Billy grows so disillusioned with the trappings of his increasing success by signing away all his rights and royalties to Jack, and letting himself get caught up with another woman, a flaky aspiring documentarian named Lizzy. Nada finds herself no more content with Hoffritz as she was with Billy, as he is continually stymied in his attempts to connect with Warhol, who finds coy ways to dodge the interview. A mutual friend tips off Billy that Nada is still in the city, and he crashes a birthday party for her thrown by Jack, with Lizzy in tow, which rekindles her attraction to him.
After sending a dubious associate to their TV studio in his place, Warhol finally shows up for the interview. He initially sits silent to Hoffritz's questions, frustrating him, but Nada is able to coax him to expound about film, vanity and fame. Nada tells Hoffritz she intends to return to Europe with him, and has Billy drive her to the airport, where she declares they are breaking up. However, upon entering the terminal, she changes her mind and tries to return, but Billy has already driven off. In turn, Hoffritz has already boarded the plane. It is suggested both Nada and Billy are still stuck in their own emotional blankness.
Acclaimed composer Elliot Goldenthal composed music for the film.
All songs were written by Richard Hell and performed by Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
Richard Lester Meyers, better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer.
Richard Hell and the Voidoids were an American punk rock band, formed in New York City in 1976 and fronted by Richard Hell, a former member of the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers.
Blank Generation is the debut studio album by American punk rock band Richard Hell and the Voidoids. It was produced by Richard Gottehrer and released in September 1977 on Sire Records.
Robert Wolfe Quine was an American guitarist. A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown. Critic Mark Deming wrote that "Quine's eclectic style embraced influences from jazz, rock, and blues players of all stripes, and his thoughtful technique and uncompromising approach led to rewarding collaborations with a number of visionary musicians."
Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III is an American actor and Warhol superstar. He was a sex symbol of gay subculture in the 1960s and 1970s, and of several American underground films before going mainstream.
No wave cinema was an underground filmmaking movement that flourished on the Lower East Side of New York City from about 1976 to 1985. Associated with the artists’ group Collaborative Projects, no wave cinema was a stripped-down style of guerrilla filmmaking that emphasized dark edgy mood and unrehearsed immediacy above many other artistic concerns – similar to the parallel no wave music movement in its raw and rapid style.
Ulli Lommel was a German actor and director, noted for his many collaborations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his association with the New German Cinema movement. Lommel spent time at The Factory and was a creative associate of Andy Warhol, with whom he made several films and works of art. He moved to the United States in 1977, where he wrote, directed and starred in over 50 films.
Suzanna Potter Love is an American former actress and screenwriter known for her collaborations with her husband, director Ulli Lommel, in the 1980s. She starred in Lommel's supernatural slasher film The Boogeyman (1980) and the psychological thriller Olivia (1983); she also co-wrote and starred in Lommel's horror films BrainWaves (1982) and The Devonsville Terror (1983). She had minor appearances in Lommel's science fiction musical film Strangers in Paradise (1984) and Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1985) before retiring from acting.
The Neon Boys were a short lived New York City proto-punk band, composed of Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell and Billy Ficca. The trio later went on to form the influential rock band Television in 1973; Richard Hell also went on to form the influential punk bands the Heartbreakers and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
Hell is a French film, released in 2005 and directed by Danis Tanović. It is based on a script originally drafted by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, which was meant to be the second film in a trilogy with the titles Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. The script was finished by Piesiewicz after Kieślowski died in 1996. The movie stars Emmanuelle Béart, Marie Gillain, and Carole Bouquet. This is the second film Emmanuelle Beart has starred in with the title "L'enfer", the first being directed by Claude Chabrol in 1994. The two films are otherwise unrelated.
The Boogey Man is a 1980 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Ulli Lommel, and starring Suzanna Love, John Carradine, and Ron James. The film's title refers to the long-held superstition of boogeymen beings, and its plot concerns two siblings who are targeted by the ghost of their mother's deceased boyfriend which has been freed from a mirror.
The Devonsville Terror is a 1983 American supernatural horror film directed by Ulli Lommel and starring Suzanna Love, Donald Pleasence, and Robert Walker. The plot focuses on three different women who arrive in a conservative New England town, one of whom is the reincarnation of a witch who was wrongfully executed along with two others by the town's founding fathers in 1683.
The Blank Generation (1976) is the earliest of the released low-budget DIY punk rock films from the No Wave scene in New York City in the mid-1970s. Inspired by Jean-Luc Godard, it was filmed by No wave cinema filmmaker Amos Poe and Patti Smith Group member Ivan Kral.
"Blank Generation" is the title track of Richard Hell and the Voidoids' 1977 debut album Blank Generation. A rewrite of Bob McFadden and Rod McKuen's 1959 record "The Beat Generation", Richard Hell wrote the new lyrics during his time with the band Television, and performed it live with another band, The Heartbreakers. Malcolm McLaren claimed that the Sex Pistols' song "Pretty Vacant" was directly inspired by "Blank Generation".
Daniel – Der Zauberer is a German biographical musical drama film written and directed by Ulli Lommel, starring pop singer Daniel Küblböck as himself.
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The Raven is a 2006 American direct-to-video production horror film directed by Ulli Lommel and references the 1845 poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. The DVD case cover art carries the title, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.
Diary of a Cannibal is a 2007 German-American horror film directed by Ulli Lommel. It is possibly inspired by Armin Meiwes, the "Rotenburg Cannibal". Lommel's film changes the account from a "Rotenburg Cannibal" to a young Los Angeleno girl who is corrupted by her new lover, a man who talks her into killing and eating him. The film has gained infamy for its highly scathing reception by critics and audiences, and has occasionally appeared in a few lists of the worst films ever made.
Tales of Halloween is a 2015 American comedy horror anthology film consisting of ten interlocking segments, each revolving around the holiday indicated by the title. Segments were directed by Neil Marshall, Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, Andrew Kasch, Paul Solet, John Skipp, Adam Gierasch, Jace Anderson, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, and Dave Parker.
Olivia is a 1983 American psychological thriller film directed by Ulli Lommel and starring Suzanna Love and Robert Walker Jr. It follows a young wife in London who is suffering from homicidal schizophrenia, stemming from having witnessed her prostitute mother's murder. She meets an American engineer and has a brief but heated romance with him, and, several years later in Arizona, he encounters a woman who resembles her but claims not to remember him.