five spot: one hour photo and music video director mark romanek talks hotdog through his major influences

09.05





1. stanley kubrick

i saw 2001 when i was nine and i remember several scenes but i had no idea what i was seeing. i saw it again when i was 13 and was able to look at it and say, "this is what i want to do for the rest of my life." there is a lot of floating and weightlessness in my videos, but that's got a lot to do with the fact that the first film i ever saw was mary poppins.

2. stan brakhage

i went to a very progressive high school where they exposed us to this transgressive stuff: stan brakhage, cocteau, kenneth anger, stuff that today you'd be fired for showing to kids. scorpio rising [anger] is this blend of satanism, facism and hardcore homoeroticism. i felt cinema could be anything. but brakhage was the one i was most drawn to.

3. orson welles

it should be stated really explicitly that i am not comparing myself to welles or and of these guys - that would be obscene - but i'm sometimes fed up that the phrase 'music-video-like' has become pejorative, meaning visually flashy or superficial. welles has this incredible, very visually aggressive, cinematic style that you would never say that about.

4. roman polanski

he's an absolutely stunning, brilliant filmmaker. the tenant is my favourite; that was a big influence on one hour photo. its probably the coolest of those lonely, paranoid films. what i love about polanski is he'll weave a tapestry of images, he's almost like a composer, spinning these variations on a theme.

5. ingmar bergman

also at an impressionable age, i saw the seventh seal and persona. actually, the sepent's egg, which is not one of his best, also came out at the time i was really immersing myself in these very hermetically sealed worlds that these great directos like fellini create. maybe i prefer fellini, actually - he's less depressing...




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