University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA AND POPULAR MUSIC CULTURE By Matthew William Nicholls For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2011 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Doctor of Philosophy INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDEPEND- ENT CINEMA AND POPULAR MUSIC CULTURE By Matthew Nicholls In recent years, many American independent films have become increasingly en- gaged with popular music culture and have used various forms of pop music in their soundtracks to various effects. Disparate films from a variety of genres use different forms of popular music in different ways, however these negotiations with pop music and its cultural surroundings have one true implication: that the 'inde- pendentness' (or 'indieness') of these movies is informed, anchored and embellished by their relationships with their soundtracks and/or the representations of or posi- tioning within wider popular music subcultures. Independent American cinema, often distinguished from mainstream Hollywood cinema in terms of the separate- ness of its production or distribution, or its thematic and/or formal transgressions, can also be seen as distinctive in terms of its musical expression. This thesis will investigate the impact that these popular music cultures have had on contemporary American independent film since the 1980s. The primary objective of this thesis is not to discuss how these films are positioned within the industry (this has been done elsewhere), nor is it the aim to scrutinise a film's independentness (or 'unin- dependentness') in terms of its production, but rather to assert how music functions in these films and how a notion of independence (indieness) can be measured from the relationship between the film, its soundtrack, and a wider music culture. This will involve textual analyses of how popular music has been used to score a selec- tion of key independent films (ranging from Blue Velvet and Do the Right Thing through to Ghost World and Juno), how popular music trends and subcultures have been represented on screen (such as dance music culture in Go), and how the film and music worlds have interacted, particularly through collaborations between di- rectors and pop musicians (such as Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell). i List of contents List of illustrations iii Declaration of authorship iv Acknowledgements v INTRODUCTION 1 i) Music and intertextuality in Marie Antoinette 1 ii) Aims, objectives and methodologies 10 iii) Existing film music criticism 19 iv) Notions of independence 28 CHAPTER ONE ESTABLISHING A BLUEPRINT FOR INDEPENDENT FILM MUSIC (1985-1990) 33 i) The work of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti 35 ii) Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing and interactions between cinema and hip hop culture 46 iii) Jim Jarmusch: hipness and recontextualising pop 60 CHAPTER TWO YOUTH AND MUSIC CULTURE (1991-2000) 73 i) Coolness and difference: exploring ‗90s youth sub- culture in the work of Richard Linklater 76 ii) Consumerism, sexuality and musical refuge in Gregg Araki‘s The Doom Generation 84 iii) Drugs and dance music culture in Doug Liman‘s Go 95 CHAPTER THREE IRONY, ENNUI AND THE ‗SMART FILM‘: POP MUSIC IN INDEPENDENT CINEMA SINCE 2000 111 i) Twee cinema: pop music, irony and kitsch 116 ii) Pop musicians as film composers: the work of Jon Brion, Jonny Greenwood and Clint Mansell 135 iii) Pop music and lo-fi sensibilities in low budget independent film since 2000 153 CONCLUSION: 2010 AND BEYOND 167 Appendix: Soundtrack album details 180 Bibliography 196 Discography 206 Filmography 210 ii List of illustrations Figure 1: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 2: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 3: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 4: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 5: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 6: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 7: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 8: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 9: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 10: Screenshot from Marie Antoinette (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2006) Figure 11: Cover art for Public Enemy‘s ‗Fight the Power‘ CD single; obtained from: http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/41M0EYxv5OL._SL500_AA300_.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) Figure 12: Screenshot from Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Jonze, US, 1989) Figure 13: Screenshot from Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Jonze, US, 1989) Figure 14: Screenshot from Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Jonze, US, 1989) Figure 15: Screenshot from Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Jonze, US, 1989) Figure 16: Screenshot from Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Jonze, US, 1989) Figure 17: Screenshot from Mystery Train (Dir. Jim Jarmusch, US, 1989) Figure 18: Screenshot from The Doom Generation (Dir. Gregg Araki, US, 1994) Figure 19: Screenshot from The Doom Generation (Dir. Gregg Araki, US, 1994) Figure 20: Screenshot from The Doom Generation (Dir. Gregg Araki, US, 1994) Figure 21: Screenshot from The Doom Generation (Dir. Gregg Araki, US, 1994) Figure 22: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 23: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 24: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 25: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 26: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 27: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 28: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 29: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 30: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 31: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 32: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 33: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 34: Screenshot from Go (Dir. Doug Liman, US, 1999) Figure 35: Album cover for The Best Party Ever by The Boy Least Likely To. Obtained from http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/514WK1ZV5ML._SL500_AA300_.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) Figure 36: Album cover for Beat Happening by Beat Happening. Obtained from http://g-ecx.images- amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/53/41/1604793509a07576c9ab7110.L.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) iii Figure 37: Screenshot from (500) Days of Summer (Dir. Marc Webb, US, 2009) Figure 38: Publicity poster for Thumbsucker; obtained from http://www.joblo.com/movie-posters/images/full/2005-thumbsucker-1.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) Figure 39: Publicity pictogram for Thumbsucker; obtained from http://www.vincev.com/images/thumbsucker2.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) Figure 40: Publicity pictogram for Thumbsucker; obtained from http://www.vincev.com/images/thumbsucker5.jpg (accessed 10/01/11) Figure 41: Screenshot from Juno (Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2007) Figure 42: Screenshot from Juno (Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2007) Figure 43: Screenshot from Juno (Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2007) Figure 44: Screenshot from Juno (Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2007) Figure 45: Screenshot from Juno (Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2007) Figure 46: Screenshot from Ghost World (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, US, 2001) Figure 47: Screenshot from Ghost World (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, US, 2001) Figure 48: Screenshot from Ghost World (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, US, 2001) Figure 49: Screenshot from Ghost World (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, US, 2001) Figure 50: Screenshot from Ghost World (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, US, 2001) Figure 51: Screenshot from There Will Be Blood (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, US, 2007) Figure 52: Screenshot from Requiem for a Dream (Dir. Darren Aronofsky, US, 2001) Figure 53: Screenshot from Mutual Appreciation (Dir. Andrew Bujalski, US, 2005) Figure 54: Screenshot from Mutual Appreciation (Dir. Andrew Bujalski, US, 2005) Figure 55: Screenshot from the trailer for Somewhere (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2010) Figure 56: Screenshot from the trailer for Somewhere (Dir. Sofia Coppola, US, 2010) Figure 57: Screenshot from the trailer for Greenberg (Dir. Noah Baumbach, US, 2010) Figure 58: Screenshot from the trailer for Greenberg (Dir. Noah Baumbach, US, 2010) Figure 59: Screenshot from the trailer for Tron: Legacy (Dir. Joseph Kosinski, US, 2010) Figure 60: Screenshot from the trailer for Tron: Legacy (Dir. Joseph Kosinski, US, 2010) iv DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, ……………………………………………………………………………., [please print name] declare that the thesis entitled [enter title] ……………………….……………………………………………………………… ………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… …………. and the work presented in the thesis are both my own, and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research. I confirm that: . this work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; . where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; . where I have consulted the published work of others, this is al- ways clearly attributed; . where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is al- ways given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; .