5 - Documenting Scenes and Performers 1: Punk, Smithereens and Suburbia

Summary

In this chapter and the next, I examine how indie musicians and music scenes have been represented within a selection of films. Indie or alternative pop/rock musical artists not only contribute to film soundtracks; many have also appeared within a range of films. In this sense, they follow in a long tradition of music artists appearing in, and contributing music to, films. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a particularly notable number of films seeking to exploit the appeal of rock’n’roll music. Elvis Presley was one of the most prominent stars to appear in films, though there were of course many others, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Presley, The Beatles and the Stones were huge international stars when they appeared in films, whereas many indie artists are not: in this and the next chapter I largely discuss artists who do not have a major profile.

The appearance of indie/alternative musicians within films can operate in similar ways to more well-known examples, even though the broader status of such musicians and the connotations of specific artists necessitates that one does not treat them synonymously. While prefigured by many examples including those mentioned above, a trend of music stars appearing in films became particularly notable in the 1980s following the increase in ‘high concept’ film production (Wyatt 1994). ‘High concept’ reflected the growing conglomeration of film studios through placing heightened emphasis on a film’s marketing opportunities; it is, as Wyatt (1994: 13) has written, ‘a striking, easily reducible narrative which also offers a high degree of marketability’. Wyatt considered music to be a crucial aspect of high concept as many such films included musical montages and offered cross-licensing opportunities, so that records could promote films in which they featured, while films could draw attention to any associated soundtrack releases and further promote musical artists. While the music artist in many such instances did not actually appear in the film, some both appeared in films and contributed to soundtrack releases. Madonna would be a good example of a major international artist who acted in several films and also contributed soundtrack material to some of these films, such as Who’s That Girl (Foley, 1987) and Dick Tracy (Beatty, 1990).