Additional information:
Passengers ...
BRIAN ENO strategies, sequences, synthesizer,
treatments,mixing, chorus voices.
Vocal on "A Different Kind Of
Blue"
BONO vocal, guitar. Piano on "Beach Sequence"
ADAM CLAYTON bass. Narration on "Your Blue Room"
THE EDGE: guitars, chorus voices. Vocal on "Corpse
(These Chains Are Way Too Long)",
organ on "Your Blue Room"
LARRY MULLEN JNR: drums, percussion. Rhythm sequence
on "One Minute Warning",
rhythm synthesizer on "United Colours"
LUCIANO PAVAROTTI: tenor voice on "Miss Sarajevo"
HOLI: vocals/co-writer on "Ito Okashi". Voice on
"One Minute Warning"
HOWIE B mixing, treatments, scratching. Call
vocal/rhythm track/co-writer on "Elvis Ate
America'
CRAIG ARMSTRONG string arrangement on "Miss Sarajevo"
PAUL BARRETT string arrangement on "Always Forever
Now"
DES BROADBERY sequencer on "Always Forever Now"
DAVID HERBERT: saxophone on "United Colours" and
"Corpse (These Chains Are Way Too Long)"
HOLGER ZSCHENDERLEIN: additional synthesizer on "One
Minute Warning"
----------------------------
The films:
"United Colours of Plutonium" exists in that
underexplored territory between horror and comedy. It
centres round afrazzled advertising executive (Damo
Ujiwara) who falls asleep on the Bullet Train. In his
dreams the spirits of thepeople he has exploited
throughout his career return to haunt him. He awakens
gratefully, only to discover that the'dream' continues
in a succession of Felliniesque phantasmagoria.
Kobayashi's bizarre use of colour, superfast
editingand extreme camera angles, coupled with a
hilariously deadpan performance by Toshiro Takemitsu
as the inspectorwho discovers a whole family of ghosts
travelling without valid tickets, remains without
peer.
Von Heineken's third feature, slug" is an extension of
the gritty, photo-realistic style he developed in
"Alcatura"(1984) and "Breaking Glass~ (1986). Dieter,
a young car mechanic (Karl Popper) unable to attract
the attention of thecashier Nela (Catarena Hofennes)
arranges an elaborate hold-up at which he will play
the hero by seeing off the'gangsters' and thus saving
Nela. Things start to go badly wrong when the robbers
realise that the till really is full ofcash, abandon
their agreement with Dieter and try to escape with the
money, whereupon the escapade develops into aconfused
shootout during which Nela shoots a security guard in
the foot and is subsequently arrested. Racked by
guiltfor having implicated her, Dieter sets out to
secure her release by fair means or foul, seducing the
Chief Warden of thewoman's prison (Jutta Minnit) in
the process.
~Beyond The Clouds" (Michelangelo Antonioni/Wim
Wenders) is about meetings. Meetings startling or
awaited,dreaded or craved by each of us, the audience,
in secret. A film director with a pocket camera casts
his eye around thetowns of France and Italy. His inner
quest inspires him with four beautiful love stories.
In the first story, a young manis so captivated by a
young woman that he cannot bring himself to sacrifice
his desire for the sake of pleasure. Thesecond
explores the film director's fascination with a young
woman who admits to him, 'I killed my father'. The
third isset in Paris, where couples fall apart and two
break-ups bring a man and a woman together. The
sublimation of love isthe theme of the last story. Can
the same heart love both God and men?
"Always Forever Now" has made a startling impact. The
remaining four members of F cell, a team of
femalebody-sculptors, are out to avenge the vicious
murder of one of their group. Their encounters with
the Tong lowlife inthe back alleys of Hong Kong reach
a climax in a dazzlingly choreographed fight scene.
The near-nudity and graphiccamerawork have led to the
film being banned or heavily cut in many countries. An
unusual combination of eroticismand allegory, the star
role falls to Venda Davis, whose Zenlike rationality
and pronounced muscularity form thepsycho-physical
axis around which the movie is constructed. The cast
includes four of America's top femalebodybuilders -
Davis, Tanya McLoad, Kiley Sue LaLonne and Dorothy
Chang - and Pi Hoo Sun as the evil Tong leaderIt is
director John Leng Qi's first film - finished on his
22nd birthday.
Lurlene Clewman's ~An Ordinary Day" confirms her
reputation as a subtle subverter of film styles. Maria
(Petra Bliss)and Dennis (Ron Hothaas) have recently
moved into a new apartment on the top floor of a
Houston skyscraper Maria
starts to notice that her complexion is improving,
that she is feeling younger by the day, but that she
is becomingforgetful about simple things. She forgets
telephone numbers, new acquaintances, how to operate
the kitchen.Meanwhile, Dennis turns up at the job he
left three years ago, and goes to his old desk to
start work. And yet despiteeverything, their love for
each other grows - until they feel like newly-weds
again. Gradually it dawns on the couplethat they have
moved into a time machine, and that they are becoming
inescapably younger Clewman's clever spoofon time
travel sci-fi poses serious questions about our
relationship with memory and youth.
Bill Carter's award winning documentary "Miss
Sarajevo" chronicles one of the more bizarre events of
the warin former Yugoslavia - when several artists
mounted an elaborate beauty contest under mortar fire.
The camerafollows the organizers through the tunnels
and cellars of the city, giving a unique insight into
life during a modernwar, where civilians are the
targets. The film captures the dark humour of the
beseiged Sarajevans, their stubbornrefusal to be
demoralised, and suggests that surrealism and dadaism
are the appropriate responses to fanaticism.
Rita Takashina is a Japanese American performance
artist active in Japan. Her best-known work "Ito
Okashi" isbased on Sei Shonagon's list of 'beautiful
things' in the tenth century classic "The Pillow
Book". Takashina'sperformance, which she describes as
a 'meditation on mortality' involves building a
construction from some of thosethings ("the face of a
child drawn on a melon, duck eggs, a baby sparrow that
comes hopping up when one imitatesthe squeak of d
mouse... "), and then turning them to dust with a
sandblasting tool.
"Ghost In The Shell" was an animation feature directed
by Mamoru Oshii in 1995. It was adapted from
MasamuneShirow's graphic novel where an
internationally notorious computer criminal surfaces
in Japan. Codenamed "ThePuppet Master" for his ability
to manipulate people's minds, this unique and
mysterious 'super-hacker' is suspected ofa multitude
of offences including stock market manipulation,
illegal data gathering, political manoeuvring,
terroristacts and infringement of cybernetic ethics.
Section 9, Japan's elite secret service is called in
to capture this elusivecriminal, but only to discover
that the elaborate web of evidence leads back to
Japan's own Ministry of Foreign Affairsand a computer
virus secretly created by them as the ultimate tool in
political and commercial espionage.
Gianniccolo's last film Gibigiane" is also his most
tautly argued. At just over ninety minutes long it is
certainly notthe huge canvas he used so devastatingly
in 'Mirages'(1984, 4 hrs, 20 mins) or '11 Vento'(1987,
5 hrs, 9 mins), but isin its comparatively modest way
just as satisfying. Its title is the word used in
Venice for the quixotic shards of lightreflected onto
walls from canals, and features only those images in a
series of 10 minute sequences which are leavedover one
another by means of slow dissolves. The film opens at
real speed, but each sequence is about 15% slowerthan
the one preceding it, so that the last ten minute
section is less than one eighth real speed. The
original filmwas silent, but a lengthy section from it
with this music was used as the title sequence to an
Italian TV detectiveseries ~'11 Pendolo') set in
Venice.After finishing 'Popcorn, his first film, in
1978, Jeff Koons continued his emerging exploration of
pop iconographywith the now legendary "Elvis Ate
America" - a four minute work using a fragment of
super 8 footage shot by theteenage Koons at one of
Presley's Las Vagas 'Rhinestone' concerts in the early
seventies. The final edit of the filmwas destroyed by
fire but Koons is considering remaking it.
"Hypnotize (Love me 'til Dawn)". An influential and
vindictive tabloid journalist (Pila Morgan) is being
driven backto London from another successful 'scoop'.
Evans, the chaffeur (Tony Corbin) is new to her, and,
in the face of asnowstorm, seems rather too willing to
allow the vehicle to become immobilized on a remote
moorland road. Duringthe night they spend together, a
vortex of apprehension, lust and finally terror draws
the film to its inexorableconclusion as the real
identity of Evans gradually dawns. Using the austere
language of British Structuralistcinema and a screen
that is kept almost black throughout the film,
Sedgeley generates a tension that is botherotic and
deeply menacing.
Mamat's "The Swan" won the Golden Crown at the
Budapest Film Festival, but never achieved a full
release in theWest. The slow and haunting pace of the
film centres round the extraordinarily dreamlike
performance of newcomerAnna Tokjaji. Her coming of
age, her romance with the ambitious apparatchik Oscar
(Emmanuel Radenski), and theslow decline of their
relationship stand as metaphors for the metamorphosis
of rural society in Hungary under thecollective farm
regime.
Vuijker's playful jaunt in the Kalahari Desert "Let's
60 Native" became one of the last films to fall foul
of theApartheid laws in South Africa. It centres round
a group of white holidaymakers whose jeep breaks down
in the desertand who, with the amused help of some
Bushmen nomads, gradually find themselves 'going
native'. Innovativecamerawork by Chris Maconoll
reveals the stark beauty of the Kalahari, but the
touching romantic scene between theteenage boy (Barry
Boedders) and the Bushmen girl (Clicky!Kang) - from
which this music is taken - proved too closeto the
bone for the censor's office.
Ben O'Rian and C. S. J. Bofop
All tracks engineered by Danton Supple
except "Elvis Ate America" engineered by Howie B.
Project assistant - Rob Kirwan
Assistant on original recording sessions - Lee
Phillips
Assistant at Metropolis - Ruadhri Cushnan
Assistant to Howie B - Fiach Cooling
Editing - Brian Eno & Rob Kirwan
Studio Crew Dennis Sheehan, Des Broadbery, Sam
O'Sullivan, Fraser McAllister,
Dallas Schoo, Stuart Morgan, Rob Kirwan, Rab
McAllister
Studio Co-ordinator: David Herbert
Recorded L mixed at Westside Studios (London) and
Hanover, Dublin
Post production and supervision Cheryl Engels/Partial
Productions Inc.
Mastering Arnie Acosta
Digital Editing Stewart Whitmore
Thanks to Robbie Adams, Marius De Vries, Nick Angel,
Gavin Friday, Candice Hanson, Osmond J. Kilkenny 111
Holi appears courtesy of Resurgence and Funhouse
Inc., Japan.
Howie B is published by Sony Music.
Luciano Pavarotti appears courtesy of The Decca
Recording Company Limited.
Italian translation on "Miss Sarajevo" by Anna
Mazzarotto
Paul McGuinness Manager of U2
Anne- Louise Kelly Album production manager
Assisted by Candida Bottaci
Brian Eno's company is Opal Uk, London.
Thank you to Anthea Norman-Taylor and James Topham
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