Home of the Brave | |
---|---|
Directed by | Laurie Anderson |
Produced by | Paula Mazur |
Starring | Laurie Anderson Adrian Belew William S. Burroughs [1] |
Cinematography | John Lindley |
Edited by | Lisa Day |
Music by | Laurie Anderson Peter Gabriel (song "Excellent Birds") |
Distributed by | Cinecom Pictures [2] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 90 minutes [3] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1,250,000 [4] |
Home of the Brave is a 1986 American concert film directed by, and featuring the music of, Laurie Anderson. The film's full on-screen title is Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson. The performances were filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, during the summer of 1985.
The film included appearances by guitarist Adrian Belew, author William S. Burroughs, keyboardist Joy Askew, and percussionist David Van Tieghem. Barry Sonnenfeld, who was early in his movie-making career, receives an early film credit for operating second projection camera on this film. The film was released by Cinecom Pictures, but it was commercially unsuccessful.
A soundtrack album was released concurrently with the film, which contained studio versions of some songs from the film and live versions of others.
The film was briefly available on VHS and Laserdisc in the early 1990s from Warner Reprise Video. In 2007, Anderson announced on her official website that the film would be released on DVD as part of a video box set. [5] The announcement was later removed and as of 2022 there has yet to be a DVD or Blu-ray release of the film.
Musical selections included songs taken from Anderson's 1984 album Mister Heartbreak (the film was shot during a tour in support of the album) and a couple of selections from her United States multimedia show of 1983, and several original pieces. Warner Bros. requested that Anderson create a single-friendly release from the soundtrack, so she recorded a faster-tempo, dance-mix version of the song "Smoke Rings". Ultimately, this recording was not released; however, it can be heard during the All-Night Diner sequence of her short film What You Mean We? Instead, a version of "Language is a Virus" that differs from the film performance was recorded and produced by Nile Rodgers, released a single, and a music video was released using footage from the film but the studio recording of the song; it received wide airplay.
The first vocal song performed by Anderson in the film is "Excellent Birds", a collaboration with Peter Gabriel from Mister Heartbreak. Although Gabriel does not appear in this film, and the song is not performed as a duet, Home of the Brave was released a few months after a second version with Anderson was released as "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" on Gabriel's album So .
Gabriel also originally provided background vocals on "Gravity's Angel" from Mister Heartbreak. Guitarist Adrian Belew sings the part more prominently in the film version.
The following pieces are performed in the film:
Only "Late Show", "White Lily", "Radar", and "Sharkey's Night" appear on the soundtrack album as they are performed in the film. Studio versions of "Smoke Rings", "Language Is a Virus", and "Talk Normal" are used on the album, as is "Credit Racket", which is also a studio track that is played over the closing credits in the film. None of the other performances in this film have to date been released in audio format.
In addition to the above, William S. Burroughs also performs two brief excerpts from "Sharkey's Night", the song he performs on Anderson's album Mr. Heartbreak. In the film, Anderson performs the complete song herself at the end of the movie. Following "Talk Normal" is an untitled spoken-word sequence with Anderson and Askew having an awkward on-stage telephone conversation. Several times during the film (most notably "Good Evening", "Difficult Listening Hour", "Sharkey's Night"), Anderson digitally modulates her voice to make it sound male; this is an effect she employed in United States and would return to later on projects such as the film What You Mean We, her introductions to the TV series Alive from Off Center and her CD-ROM release, Puppet Motel .
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York City during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She achieved unexpected commercial success when her song "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981.
Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual approach to the instrument, his playing often resembling sound effects or noises made by animals and machines.
"Thela Hun Ginjeet" is a single by the band King Crimson, released in 1981 and on the album Discipline (1981). The song name is an anagram of "heat in the jungle", which is a reference to crime in the city.
Mr. Music Head is the fourth solo album by Adrian Belew, released in April 1989, and his first for Atlantic Records. It features the single, "Oh Daddy".
Big Science is the debut studio album by American performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. It was the first of a seven-album deal Anderson signed with Warner Bros. Records. The album consists of a selection of musical highlights from her eight-hour production United States Live, which was itself released as a 5-LP box set and book in 1984.
Mister Heartbreak is the second studio album by American avant-garde artist, singer and composer Laurie Anderson, released on February 14, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.
United States Live is the first live album and third overall album by avant-garde singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson. Released as a 5-record boxed set, the album is a recording of a performance of Anderson's piece United States at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City in February 1983.
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the soundtrack to the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1938. The first soundtrack album of a film's orchestral score was that for Alexander Korda's 1942 film Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, composed by Miklós Rózsa.
What You Mean We? is a 1986 American made-for-television musical short film starring the performance artist Laurie Anderson, who also wrote and directed the piece.
Home of the Brave is the third studio album and first soundtrack album by avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, released in 1986 by Warner Bros. Records. The album is a soundtrack of her concert film of the same name.
"I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" is a song from Walt Disney's 1967 film The Jungle Book. The song was written by songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman, and was performed by singer and musician Louis Prima as King Louie, with Phil Harris providing additional vocals as Baloo the bear.
"Nella Fantasia" is a song sung in Italian based on the theme "Gabriel's Oboe" from the film The Mission (1986). With music by composer Ennio Morricone and lyrics by Chiara Ferraù, "Nella Fantasia" is popular among classical crossover singers, and was originally released in 1998 by Sarah Brightman. It has since been covered by many artists.
You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With is a double album released in 1981. The album is a collaboration by Laurie Anderson, John Giorno and William S. Burroughs, recorded during their "Red Night" spoken word tour of 1981. Released through Giorno Poetry Systems Institute, the album was funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Most of Anderson's material came from her performance piece, United States, and live versions of some tracks, such as "It Was Up in the Mountains", would also be included in her later 4-LP release, United States Live. This was Anderson's first substantial album release, and she followed this in 1982 with her first full solo album, Big Science.
Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology is a retrospective of the seven albums recorded by American experimental music composer Laurie Anderson for Warner Bros. Records. All tracks had been previously released. This was the final Anderson release on the main Warner Bros. label before moving to the subsidiary Nonesuch.
This is a bibliography of the works of William S. Burroughs.
Cheryl Bentyne is a jazz singer who spent much of her career with The Manhattan Transfer.
David Van Tieghem is an American composer, percussionist and sound designer, best known for his philosophy of utilizing any available object as a percussion instrument and for his collaborations with the experimental artists Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Robert Ashley and David Byrne.
Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings is a compilation of home recordings by Kurt Cobain that were used as the soundtrack to the film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, released posthumously on November 13, 2015 by Universal Music. The album was released as a standard 13-track CD, a 31-track deluxe album, and an audio cassette. The 13-track standard version focuses on the music found on Cobain's personal cassettes and the 31-track deluxe version showcases tracks from the documentary including spoken word, demos and full songs.
Working Class Boy is a 2018 soundtrack album by Australian singer-songwriter, Jimmy Barnes. It is the soundtrack album for the 2018 film of the same name, based on the 2016 memoir of the same name, which became a tour in 2016 and 2017 in which Barnes sang songs and told stories from the memoir. The album was released on 17 August 2018.
"Excellent Birds" is a song written by Laurie Anderson and Peter Gabriel. It was first included on Anderson's Mister Heartbreak album in 1984. Gabriel later reworked the song for his So album in 1986 with the title "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)". This version was excluded from the original vinyl edition of So but appeared as the final track on the cassette and CD releases. For later releases, "In Your Eyes" was placed the last song on So instead, moving "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" earlier in the track listing.