A movie is currently being made about 90s indie rockers Pavement. News of the film comes following a two-day workshop of a musical about the band titled Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical. The workshop was performed twice, on Thursday, 1st and Friday, 2nd December, at Manhattan’s Sheen Center. The musical forms part of the broader film project.
Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry was approached by Pavement’s record label, Matador, in 2019. The band wanted a movie to be made about them, but singer, guitarist and songwriter Stephen Malkmus stipulated that he didn’t want a documentarian, he wanted a screenwriter. But also, he didn’t want a screenplay. Perry was then tasked with formulating an idea for the film.
Pavement – ‘Harness Your Hopes’
Although little is known about the content of the film, in a New Yorker article, Perry made comparisons to various Bob Dylan films. “You take the Todd Haynes Bob Dylan movie, the Scorsese documentary, the Pennebaker documentary, and the movie Dylan himself directed that everyone hates and put them all in a blender,” he said.
The film will contain footage from the musical and its rehearsals, and be a mix of documentary and biopic, perhaps not unlike American Splendour, the 2003 film on the life of cartoonist Harvey Pekar.
Perry directed the recent film clip for Pavement’s ‘Harness Your Hopes’, as well as the films Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth and Her Smell, all of which star Elisabeth Moss. The director described the forthcoming Pavement movie as “legitimate, ridiculous, real, fake, idiotic, cliché, illogical.” As yet, no release date has been set.
Further Reading
Pavement, Spiderbait & More to Play Tent Pole, Geelong’s Musical Jamboree
