News

Arcade Fire Making Short Film With Spike Jonze, Webcast With Terry Gilliam

12:29 p.m. · August 3, 2010 · by Julian Hattem

As if having one of the best albums of the year and being one of the most influential bands of the decade weren't enough, the Arcade Fire have some new projects forthcoming with some of the best filmmakers of our time.

First up is a webcast of their Madison Square Garden Show this Thursday, August 5, directed by Terry Gilliam of Brazil and 12 Monkeys fame. That show, presented live on their YouTube/Vevo page at 10pm EDT, will take some cues from the Choose Your Own Adventure school of media and let you pick the angle you want to watch from.

Then, the orchestral titans are working with Spike Jonze to release a short film based on the music from the Suburbs. Frontman Win Butler explains to Pitchfork:

It's a short film; we're still working on it. It's like a science-fiction B-movie companion piece for the record.

 

Basically, we played Spike some music from the album and the first images that came to his mind had the same feeling as this idea for a science fiction film I had when I was younger. My brother and I and Spike wrote it together, which was really fun-- it was like total amateur hour.

 

We shot it in Austin and a lot of kids are in the film, and it was great just hanging out with these 15-year-olds for a week and writing down all the funny things they said. It was cool to revert to being a 15-year-old for a little while.

Jonze and the Arcade Fire have been pals for a while (the band contributed to Where the Wild Things Are's trailer), and rumors had been swirling about a collaboration for some time now. This new film, whatever it ends up looking like, is sure to be a keeper.

Read the full interview on Pitchfork.

In case you can't make the internet, there's a whole tour of North America and Europe to get in on.

08.04 New York, NY: Madison Square Garden
08.05 New York, NY: Madison Square Garden
08.06 Columbia, MD: Merriweather Post Pavilion
08.08 Chicago, IL: Lollapalooza
08.09 Nashville, TN: Ryman Auditorium
08.11 Atlanta, GA: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
08.14 Toronto, ON: Olympic Island
08.27 Leeds, UK: Leeds Festival
08.27 Reading, UK: Reading Festival
08.29 Saint Cloud, France: Rock En Seine
09.02 Bologna, Italy: I-Day Festival
11.18 Lisbon, Portugal: Atlantica Pavilion
11.20 Madrid, Spain: Palacio de Deportes
11.21 Barcelona, Spain: Palau Sant Jordi
11.24 Marseille, France: Le Dome
11.26 Lyon, France: Halle Tony Garnier
11.28 Munich, Germany: Zenith
11.29 Dusseldorf, Germany: Philipshalle