| The Committee | |
|---|---|
 British poster | |
| Directed by | Peter Sykes |
| Written by | Max Steuer Peter Sykes |
| Produced by | Max Steuer |
| Starring | Paul Jones |
| Cinematography | Ian Wilson |
| Edited by | Peter Elliott |
| Music by | Pink Floyd and Arthur Brown |
Release date |
|
Running time | 55 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Committee is a 1968 British independent black-and-white film noir directed by Peter Sykes. [1] It features original music by Pink Floyd as well as Arthur Brown's song "Nightmare". [2]
The movie begins with the unnamed male protagonist in a car with a driver. The driver attempts conversation with the protagonist before deciding to pull over as he believes the engine is malfunctioning. While he is inspecting the engine, the protagonist slams the bonnet down on his head several times, eventually decapitating him. The protagonist then sews the head back on after which the driver wakes up. The protagonist tells the driver to leave without him. A few years later the protagonist is called on to be part of The Committee, a group that allegedly keeps society functioning but really do very little. The Committee consists of 300 people who meet at a country estate where they swim, play tennis and sail boats during non-working hours; they host a dance with a live performance by Arthur Brown one evening. The protagonist becomes paranoid that the committee was called on account of him. He also encounters the driver of the car while at the estate but the man does not remember him.
The central character then discusses all of this with The Committee's director for the duration of the movie; this sequence and features most of the music Pink Floyd wrote for the film. At the end of The Committee's weekend retreat the protagonist meets a young woman while checking out and helps carry her bags to her car. She offers him a ride and they drive off. She asks him if he plays bridge, but he does not answer her and the film ends.
| The Committee | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Pink Floyd | ||||
| Released | 2016 | |||
| Recorded | January 30 1968 | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock | |||
| Length | 15:45 (total time of all excerpts) | |||
| Pink Floyd soundtracks chronology | ||||
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 | This section needs additional citations for verification .(February 2020) |
Titles taken from A Tree Full of Secrets bootleg. "The Committee (Part 1 backwards version)" is the original recording, which was reversed for the film. "The Committee (Part 7)" is an early recording of "Careful with That Axe, Eugene". The soundtrack is also on other bootlegs that are just called The Committee. It also features the Arthur Brown track "Prelude-Nightmare". It has been often misquoted that his song "Fire" is in the film. The confusion is possibly because he wears the same "flaming head-gear" that he used in the Fire footage, often seen on TV.
Max Steuer, producer of the film The Committee (a surreal curio, ostensibly about the battle between the establishment and radicalised youth), sought out Pink Floyd to provide the soundtrack. Steuer, a professor at LSE during Jenner’s tenure, kept in contact as Pink Floyd took off. A meeting between Steuer and Barrett went well. Syd agreed to provide the soundtrack and on 30 January they booked expensive studio time at Sound Techniques. The scene of some of Barrett’s finest work, the session got off to a poor start when he showed up an hour and a half late without a guitar or group. After a few frantic calls, some hired hands were assembled and a guitar borrowed. Steuer and Jenner returned a few hours later to find a trio of drums, bass, and guitar. Together, they ploughed through a twenty-minute instrumental, which Barrett insisted should be played backwards for the soundtrack. As they listened in dismay to the backwards jam, Syd thought the track a good start. The Piper sessions saw a fair bit of backwards tape, though Barrett’s interest in turning things around was symptomatic of his tendency to opt for sonic reversal at every opportunity. Sound Techniques engineer John Wood telephoned Syd’s lodgings to ask what tracks should be titled, if anything. The phone rang and rang. Barrett was gone. So ended a difficult phase, six months that began with a frantic search for third single and ended with a twenty-minute backwards odyssey. It would be Barrett’s last session for three months. Instead, Steuer turned to Pink Floyd, who delivered a perfunctory score with no fuss. [3]
The Committee has only been released once on DVD coupled with a CD Single with Paul Jones' title track "The Committee" in 2005, and later in remastered format on Blu-ray, as part of the 2016 Pink Floyd box set The Early Years 1965–1972 . [4]
