Welcome to episode 32 of See Hear podcast.

 

Can you imagine Francois Truffaut visiting New York in the

seventies, walking into CBGBs, and thinking "I really need to make a film

inspired by this new thing called punk"? (except he'd probably be thinking

it n French....but apart from that, can you imagine it?) It seems that Ulli

Lommel had one of those "what if" moments, and so a man more known

for horror films came up with Blank Generation.

 

Blank Generation concerns the tempestuous relationship between a

French journalist (Carole Bouquet) and a punk singer (Richard Hell) in NYC

during the seventies. Does Godard and punk music mix? Does the film work as a

romance? Does it work as a punk film? Does it work as a tribute to the French

New Wave? Is it a decent way to spend 78 minutes? Will Nada and Billy ever get

to the beach? Would GG Allin have liked it? Bernie, Tim and Maurice will clue

you in.

 

But wait....there's more. Four years earlier in 1976, Amos Poe and

Ivan Kral put together a film called THE Blank Generation featuring a lot of

poorly edited black and white footage of some unknown punk bands like Blondie,

Patti Smith Band, Talking Heads and The Ramones playing at CBGBs. The film was

shot silent but had the bands' music place on top of the film with no attempt

to synchronise the audio and visual (maybe not even doing the same songs). We

discuss this time capsule and whether despite its amateurish nature, if it had

something to offer.

 

We had a fun time discussing these films and hope you enjoy our

chat. We only discovered in post production there were some audio issues, but

hopefully, you should still enjoy the content.

 

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could you please rate us at iTunes or even better, spread the word that the

show exists so more folks can tune in.

 

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