Category: Mark Mothersbaugh

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Moonrise Kingdom Soundtrack Details Released



The first details of the Moonrise Kingdom soundtrack have been released by ABCKO Records, the company that also released the soundtracks to The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox. The soundtrack, which is due to be released on May 22, will feature Françoise Hardy, Hank Williams, Alexandre Desplat, music performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, and classical composer Benjamin Britten, whose majestic choral opera “Noye’s Fluddes,” evidently “ignites the film’s young lovers.” No stranger to Wes Anderson films, Marc Mothersbaugh also contributes a track.

The soundtrack is available for pre-order on Amazon, but does not yet have a soundtrack listing.

Françoise Hardy’s Le Temps de l’Amour was featured in the first trailer for Moonrise Kingdom, so no surprises there. The mix of the French Yé-Yé with American country and classical compositions would be strange in anyone else’s film, but it seems quintessentially Wes.

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Interview with Mark Mothersbaugh

Wes Anderson favorite Mark Mothersbaugh recently sat down for an interview with Splitsider to talk about his time spent on Rugrats, his musical inspirations, and his song-writing process.

He also touched on the process of working with Wes:

“It was interesting,” Mothersbaugh continued. “Rarely are you involved that early in a project unless it’s a stage show, like a musical or something.”

The only other director that took this approach with Mothersbaugh, according to the composer, was Wes Anderson. “He sat in the studio with me and would be writing the script. And he’d say, ‘You know, I’m thinking about putting a composer on the boat with everybody. What kind of equipment would he be using? What kind of keyboards and recording equipment would he be using?’”

Noting that such a multi-disciplinary and collaborative way of working has only happened to him “a few times,” Mothersbaugh confessed that normally “you’re almost an after-thought on a lot of films. It’s the nature of the beast.”

Read the rest of the interview over on Splitsider.

(Photo of Mark and Wes after The Life Aquatic screening with BMI executives from here.)

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Interview with Mark Mothersbaugh and the commercial muse

USA Today has a new interview with Mark Mothersbaugh:

I was already scoring movies at that point, and I got a call from somebody at Sony who said, “We’ve got this interesting film with a difficult director, and you’re the only person he wants to talk to about scoring his movie.” And I thought, “Oh, no.” I went to see his movie, and when I was watching Bottle Rocket, I think they set a record for more people walking out than any other film this focus group had ever worked on. But I thought, “This guy has a really interesting take on our culture right now.” So I really wanted to meet him, and we just really hit it off. We ended up doing four films.

And, Ted Hamilton muses over the commercialization of the muse:

But where do these ideal artists exist? Even outside of visual art, it’s hard to find truly anti-establishment creators. I remember the sinking feeling in my chest when Wes Anderson debuted an ad for the American Express’ “My Life. My Card” campaign, and the sense of bewilderment and betrayal when Bob Dylan signed up for an Apple ad two years later. Everyone, it seems, is on the gravy train. And those who aren’t — well, they’re invisible.

Thoughts?

Keep the Webicon.me art coming, and check out the entries so far!

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Mark Mothersbaugh art on tour (from Paste)

From Paste:

Mark Mothersbaugh plans to tickle our fancies this spring, when he tours the United States showcasing his artwork. The art, which has doubled as Mothersbaugh’s personal (and creative) method of diary-keeping, will travel to Berkley, Calif. and the windy city of Chicago in an exhibition entitled “The Postcard Diaries.”
“Usually, the only way someone can get an original sketch is if I give it to them myself,” Mothersbaugh said in a statement. “I’ve sent a few in the mail, and handed others out to friends and family. I’ve probably got around 30,000 of them filed away now…and I keep making more every day. The limited edition prints are my way of sharing these personal images with other people around the world.”

If displaying his most personal memories to the universe wasn’t enough, Mothersbaugh, along with the other lifetime members of Devo, has also been busy creating the soundtrack to your life, almost literally. The four men, along with a couple other composers, created the music for HBO’s first season of Big Love, the theme to Pee-wee’s Playhouse (seriously), and the soundtrack to the majority of Wes Anderson’s films. (And that barely scratches the surface of the group’s prevalence in pop-culture. Those Apple vs. PC ads? Them. Rugrats‘ music? You guessed it.)

Check out info about the opening party on Craigslist, and get ready to whip it good. (What? You knew we’d fit that in somewhere. Even if it doesn’t make much sense, Mothersbaugh would surely approve.) And, if you’re a true fan, you can always pick up a Red Energy Dome Hat to wear to the show here.

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Wes sans Mothersbaugh

From our friends over at the Playlist:

Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of speculation (including our own) on the whereabouts of Anderson mainstay and composer Mark Mothersbaugh (who has scored all of Wes film’s up until now). We just heard from our inside source who confirmed that Mothersbaugh, will in fact, not be participating in this new Anderson film. As we’ve noted extensively, the ‘Darjeeling’ will use music from the films of Indian cinema legend Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory (whose early films were all set in India). Expect songs from Satyajit Ray himself as he began scoring all his own films after 1961. Our other educated guesses on the music by those aforementioned filmmaker you might hear can be read here.

P.S. Check out Rodrigo’s really fantastic piece “Wes Anderson and the Satyajit Ray Connection.”

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The Visual Art of Mark Mothersbaugh

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Recent article: “The Visual Art of Mark Mothersbaugh”

Update: a great website w/ galleries — the visual art of mark mothersbaugh