PULP live! — Jarvis Cocker & Garth Jennings capture the power of pop

Heads up, audio listeners, you're about to hear a videotaped conversation. For the full experience, check out the video version of this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Back around 1997, there was a wax museum in London called Madame Tussaud's Rock Circus. It was full of animatronic wax effigies of rock stars like The Beatles, Tina Turner and the newly minted pop icon, Jarvis Cocker, frontman of the UK band, Pulp.

- Pulp. - Pulp. At the time, he and the band were struggling to finish their album, This Is Hardcore. I used to be in Madame Tussaud's in London. Can tell you that it led to a very, one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Can I tell you about it? No, don't tell us about that at all.

Definitely tell us about it. OK, so I can let you into a trade secret here, that when they're doing a wax work, they generally just, you go in and they'll take lots of photographs of your head and they'll measure your head. We were in the studio, we were trying to finish This Is Hardcore. We'd been going on for a year, spent loads of money, everybody was in a terrible mood.

I was sat in the control room and one of the tapes ops came in said, "A package has arrived for you." So this box came in and I opened it and you know those kind of polystyrene things - that you have in... - Yeah, the peanuts. So I cleared those and then my head was just looking at me. It's like the end of Seven. - Yeah, it's like...

- Yeah. Because apparently the reason they'd done that, after I'd recovered from the shock of it, was to check the colour of the eyes. They wanted me to hold it next to my head and take a picture then they'd know if they'd got the colour of the eyes right. - They should warn you. - They should've warned me.

Yeah, that is quite creepy. That is Jarvis Cocker and director Garth Jennings, who in his new film, sort of has Jarvis gaze upon himself again with way happier results. The movie is called

Pulp What Do You Do For An Encore? It starts off like a concert movie documenting Pulp's huge super theatrical reunion gigs at London's O2 arena last year. But then every couple of songs, the concert pauses to let Jarvis, in voiceover, muse about his life and his band, accompanied by years of archival footage, home movies, press interviews, even random TV ads he dug as a kid.

Pulp This film is going to be like being at a jumble sale. And all because the lady loves Milk Tray. And after a while it turns into something really moving. A love letter to art, his bandmates, and especially the audience. I'm Rico Gagliano, welcome back to the MUBI Podcast. MUBI is the global film company that champions great cinema.

Pulp On this show, we tell you the stories behind great cinema. Today, a special episode, it's my interview with Jarvis Cocker and director Garth Jennings about, What Do You Do For An Encore? It's streaming exclusively on MUBI right now. Pulp blew up in late '90s Britain after Jarvis literally fell from a window and during his hospital stay, got the idea of fusing sexy soul music with euphoric eurodisco and witty, righteous lyrics.

Pulp His killer fashion sense also didn't hurt. Then, to his dismay, critics labelled Pulp "Britpop" along with UK acts like Oasis. Later, you'll hear him talk about all the above. Meanwhile, Garth Jennings is probably best known for the mega-hit animated movies he wrote and directed, Sing and Sing 2, but he also directed some of the coolest and funniest rock videos of the '90s for the likes of Blur and Supergrass.

Pulp I sat down with Garth and Jarvis after a screening of their movie last month in front of a live audience at the Regal Union Square cinema in New York City. As expected, they were both dressed up, dapper as can be. I sorted my questions for them into five kind of chapters. What's in the movie, what's not in the movie, dapper suits, cartoons, and we began, appropriately enough, with some questions about beginnings.

Pulp Starting with Garth and Pulp's first work together on one of the band's music videos, circa 1997. We had recorded the song "Help the Aged" and it was announced that we were gonna do it and you sent a treatment in for it. Yeah, I sent an idea, and it was the first time we were working with a band of your status.

Pulp And we put in the idea which was a Stannah stairlift to heaven, in the style of Powell and Pressburger. Do you know what Stannah stairlifts are? - Old people have them. - In their houses. When they can't get up the stairs anymore, you put them on a very slow chair. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to see Jarvis on one of those.

Pulp - And you felt the same way? - Yeah, I loved it. I sat down for most of the video. Yeah, it was good. He was a natural. And you collaborated on other stuff since then? What was the moment where you kind of realised game recognise game? This was not gonna be a one off. You would continue to do things.

Pulp Well, I mean that treatment for "Help the Aged" was one of the things because it referenced a Powell and Pressburger film, A Matter of Life and Death Don't know if you've seen that, a great film. When you share some cultural references with somebody, then you know that you can make something good together.

Pulp And you invited Garth in to co-create the stage show. Was there a vibe that you were hoping for when you...? Yeah, four letters, A, B, B, A. - ABBA, because... - Oh, right, yeah. I was thinking chord progressions and then-- Oh yeah, the Swedish band. In London at the moment, it's been going for a few years, is this show called ABBA Voyage. It features ABBAtars, not avatars, but ABBAtars.

Pulp So they seem to be like ABBA but like in the 1970s, these figures are on the stage and they perform. Then there is a real band. And we'd both separately seen that show. Yeah, loved it. It was so joyful and so unashamedly theatrical. And it was all about, you know, re-presenting the music in a way that just felt really special.

Pulp I would not have guessed musical theatre was the thing that you-- - Or a jukebox musical. - Yes, I'm going to do it soon But I assume, between the two of you that you have, like, a compendious knowledge of every rock film ever made, every concert film ever made. Was there a concert film that you were kind of like, this is something that I would love to take stuff from or be inspired by.

Pulp For me, there wasn't one I was sort of taking stuff from. I've seen a lot and they're the obvious ones. The most recent one that was really baked into my noodle was Beyoncé's Homecoming. Oh, wow. Yeah, it just-- Again, killer entrance. Have you seen that? - Yeah. - Because of the opening? That's how you do it.

Pulp - How does it open? - Well, it's Beyoncé. She could just stand there for ages, it would be fine. But she comes on as a queen, goddess and then storms off with a stick. Then she's gone for a bit. Then she comes up on the back of the stage and there's hundreds of people on the stage, she does "Crazy in Love", she says, "Coachella, you ready?"

Pulp And it's just like fantastic. And then they have all these cutaways to the show being prepared. So I thought, "Oh, that works. "You can watch a show and tell a story." And I thought, "That's good." So the format of the show actually comes from Beyoncé. Don't tell her that, she'll be all over me. Yeah, no, but it's true.

Pulp It wasn't that it was from that, but it was just one of the many concert films I've seen that I thought was terrific and was very nicely done, yeah. Were you aware of that? That that was one of the... No, I thought we were just making a straight concert film, actually. - Yeah. - But then... But then when Garth said that it was going to be archive, I thought, OK.

Pulp I couldn't watch most of it, tonight actually, for some reason. - Why? - I don't know. It's a bit like watching your life, you know, you're supposed to see all your life flash before you when you're dying. Maybe I just thought I was gonna die if I watched it, I don't know. I'm sorry you felt like that.

Pulp So you kind of were like, let's not just make it a concert movie, we're gonna weave your life and band story into this thing. And you thought, what, you were like, "No. "I'll feel like I'm dying." There was, Garth arranged a viewing of the rough cut of it, maybe just before Christmas - I think it was last year.

Pulp - It was, yeah. And... and when I saw it then I could see that it was gonna work. The voice of God, which is me in the film, which is, you know, that's, that also was, I could see why that would work, but I hope, well, it's a bit like... You just hear my voice a lot in that film. Yeah. - Yeah, it's good.

Pulp - Which is fine, I suppose. - You've got a lovely voice. - Oh, no. And it's, and I like the fact that it was, felt like Jarvis was telling you the story, not me or other expert people, you know, that say, "Oh, I remember when this came out and this is what it meant." I think it's what you're saying, that it felt like he was right next to you, telling you the story.

Pulp Which came first, the story, though, or the archival? Well, let me take a step back. You, I'm assuming that you had a huge amount of archival stuff. How much did you have to work with? Just loads. Just so much. Tons and tons. And it was amazing and difficult to-- Because, when you look at stuff, you just get drawn into it.

Pulp It's like going through your own photographs at home and you end up going through all of them. What was your favourite piece of ephemera that you came upon in that pile? It was when Jarvis went on a pirate ship... - with Frank Bruno. - What is that? I love that. It's a show... For those listening at home, this is a moment in the film.

Pulp It's from a TV show, it looks like. Yeah, Live & Kicking was a kids TV programme that was on on Saturday mornings. It was lovely going through that stuff though. Even seeing things like old TV ads that we wanted to try out. It was just, I've loved being back, going through it all. What was your favourite thing you maybe had forgotten about?

Pulp - A piece of video. - Well, the one that I wasn't-- There were lots of bits that I just didn't remember at all. There's one where I think it's a Scandinavian interviewer and he says, "How do you top yourself?" Or something like that. When releasing an album, do you think it's important to top yourself? - No way.

Pulp - That's an unfortunate phrase. In English, if you say to "top yourself", it means to commit suicide. Oh, sorry. A problem with the language. Yes. I don't know, I kind of like that. The concert starts, by the way, we're in the "what's in the movie" part of the conversation now.

Pulp It starts with Jarvis, in voiceover, saying the very hilarious and kick ass announcement "This will be a night you will remember "for the rest of your life." Who made that decision and tell me why you decided to open that way? I always love a concert because, well, it's like in this audience as well, you know, you get people gathered together in a place and there'll never be this gathering of people again.

Pulp The thing about concerts, and I think... is that an audience makes it, you know. A band can go and rehearse in a room and it can sound OK and everything, but it's not a concert. To make it a concert it's a cooperation between you and the audience. And I think there's a term, it's called collective effervescence, apparently.

Pulp That was a term coined back in 1912 by a French psychologist. So this is this thing where, it can happen at sporting events and at concerts, where it becomes almost like a chemical reaction and no one's really in charge of it. In normal life I'm a fairly repressed, controlled person, but on stage, I managed to escape that.

Pulp And... and no one-- Yeah, this thing of losing control, I think is important, especially with other people. Does it though, to me also, it kind of speaks about something that I love, and I'll bet you a lot of people here love about the band too, which is simultaneously acknowledging the power of pop music, but also acknowledging how ridiculous the hugeness of pop music is.

Pulp This is the night you'll remember, you will remember for the rest of your life. It's so big, it's absurd. And I wonder, like where-- 'Cause I see it in both of your work all the time. It's like loving the power of music, but also knowing that it's ridiculous on some level. And I'm wondering when that occurred to you and why it's been such a thing in your work.

Pulp Well, you know, I was brought up on pop music. My mum used to have the pop radio on when she was getting me and my sister ready to go to school and it was the first music that kind of gave me what I called the tingle, where you hear something and it makes you go kind of shivery in a pleasant way. But then when I got older, I realised that pop music didn't tell you the whole story of relationships.

Pulp Like when I attempted to have relationships myself, I thought, "Well, this is nothing like--" In pop songs, it's like, Yeah, love you baby Everything's gonna be fine And I just, it was always awkward and stuff. So I, at a very early age, I decided that what I was gonna try and do was have songs that were pop songs that had a pop song structure of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, double chorus, maybe a solo occasionally, but to put words in that that I thought were more honest.

Pulp Something sort of akin to what you're talking about. I do wanna hear like, did you have that moment where it's kind of like, this is glorious and absurd. - On making this film? - Well, in pop music in general. Oh, from the beginning, I actually-- That thing you just said about the tingle, I really relate.

Pulp I'm sure everyone does, actually. It is that physical reaction to it. But I mean, when you're little and Freddie Mercury comes on and sings "Bohemian Rhapsody", you've got everything you were saying just then about, it feels fantastic but it is also just funny and over the top and brilliant. Yeah and then even in cinema, that feeling, I got it by the bucket load.

Pulp So when Elliot's flying with E.T. and John Williams is giving it some... I am getting some serious-- Nine years old, I'm getting a massive tingle. Yeah. That sounded disgusting but you know what I mean, right? Yeah. Sorry. - But it was. - Oh no. And I basically chased that a bit like I guess you've been doing through music.

Pulp I've been chasing those feelings through the work I've been trying to do. Even in the music videos, they weren't my songs, but I was trying to capture why I felt that way about the song and hopefully make something that would communicate that or share that too. That's what this film was, just to try and share that feeling.

Pulp Yes, well, that actually kind of leads to my next question, which is, at the same time that there's maybe that somewhat ironic look at music going on, I mean, just in general, the way that it's put together, this movie is so non-ironic. It was almost surprising. Right? I was expecting more pop strutting, which we get, we get plenty of pop strutting, but this kind of embrace of the audience that happens was really surprising to me, and I confess, I don't know how the live shows have evolved over time but when did that start happening to Pulp shows where it became such a collective thing?

Pulp That's a good question, actually. You commented actually that when you started editing the film, you were worried at first 'cause there were so many people singing along. - It was the loudest-- - How we gonna get rid of them. Yeah, it was, but they become, like you're saying it's the secret ingredient because it's between you and them.

Pulp And if you didn't have them, it wouldn't be the same. But they were so loud and they were singing-- It wasn't just like the front row or the front bit. It was right to the back of the arena and it was phenomenal. - It was 20,000 people. - It was really moving. And when we got to "Something Changed" and you really can hear them.

Pulp That is what it sounded like in there, we haven't enhanced any of that. It was really extraordinary, really powerful. Lovely. So I don't, yeah, I mean, I don't know when it started happening. Maybe... Well, there's in the film it talks about Glastonbury. Oh, yeah, yeah. When you're really realising, God, they know every word.

Pulp Oh yeah. That actually, that's a good point. That was when, that was the first time anybody'd sung along to a Pulp song. I mean, audibly. - Really? - Yeah, well... So it's pretty deep into your career. But no, because "Common People" had been a hit in the UK and Glastonbury was the first concert that we did after that. So it was a big-- - Oh my gosh.

Pulp - It was really weird. We started playing it and I could hear the audience singing it really loud, and it made me nervous 'cause I thought, "I might forget the words and they'll know "because they know the words." I divide concert movies loosely into concert movies that show the audience, and concert movies that don't show the audience.

Pulp Stop Making Sense doesn't show the audience until the very end. This movie shows them right from the beginning, and I'm assuming it's to get this vibe across, but there's also a really easy way to make that feel very pandering. It's kind of like, "You should now enjoy the song "like this person is enjoying the song."

Pulp But I never feel that when I'm watching this movie. And I'm wondering if there was, consciously how you were approaching showing the audience in this movie. I didn't think we'd be showing that much before we shot it, but then when it happened... - Wow. - ...you couldn't avoid it. They were a huge part of your show.

Pulp And I couldn't believe how lovely everyone was. I couldn't believe how many different generations, people had come from all over the place. It was such a mix and so many young people as well. That was surprising to me too. They were all beautiful. I couldn't believe it. Everybody, every man and woman there was just fabulous.

Pulp It looked like we cast them, but they were really just genuinely lovely. And that was great. And that's what I mean. We just responded to what was happening. At the beginning I thought we'd hold back on the crowd. So you ended up turning the cameras on the crowd, - basically, 'cause... - It was like, "Turn them around."

Pulp It was like, "Turn the cameras around" Yeah, "They're going mental. Go" Yeah. Those cameras on the crowd were supposed to be on Jarvis. So when we knew we had enough cameras on Jarvis, we would turn the other one around. Yes. Amazing. I could go on forever, by the way, talking about the actual songs in this movie.

Pulp There is one, and it maybe goes to what we're talking about here that I want to talk to you about, Jarvis, because it seems like you've had an interesting relationship with it, it comes up really early in the movie, is "Mis-Shapes", which is a beautiful, beautiful song, one of my favourite songs that you do.

Pulp And it's, for those who don't know, this is a call to nerds and oddballs and smart people - to rise up and take over. - Take over, yeah. And I read that that was written, I guess, in '96 or something, and in '99 you gave an interview where you were like, "I don't like listening to that song anymore "because it's clear that didn't happen."

Pulp Like basically we didn't take over. But it's back in your set and I'm wondering what has changed in your relationship to that song? I kind of grew up, I suppose. When we did a Pulp greatest hits record, - It's not on there. - I consciously said - we can't have it on there. - Yeah. Which was just being petty really.

Pulp But it was like, yeah. So there was this exciting moment in the UK where bands that traditionally would have just been indie bands, started having hits in the real hit parade. And to me that seemed exciting because it seemed like there could be a revolution or something, you know, that culture could get more interesting...

Pulp if you were getting these people from the margins, taking the centre stage. And so "Mis-Shapes" was written in that kind of mood of giddy expectation because "Common People" had been a hit. So I thought, "right, we've got an audience now. "So now I'm gonna whip them up into a fervour "and we will cause revolution to happen."

Pulp And it didn't happen, you know. For a start, it got this horrible name, B Pop. I can't say the word, you know, which was a horrible term because obviously the pop bit I was alright with 'cause we were always telling people we were pop and they'd go, "Shut up, you indie band." And stuff like that. But the Brit part I didn't like because that was like some - kind of flag waving thing...

Pulp - Nationalistic? ...and I really didn't like that idea. I'm always thinking these things are gonna happen, actually. It was the same when there was the acid house thing in the UK in the late '80s. I thought, "This is it, this is it now, yeah. "We're all gonna be raving all the time "and we're all gonna stop going to work and everything."

Pulp - And it didn't happen so... - Exactly. But I guess it's back in the set now and I really enjoy singing it. And maybe, I don't know, up for a revolution anybody? I mean, yeah. Some of the lyrics definitely hit hard right now, "The future that you've got mapped out "Is nothing much to shout about "We won't use guns We won't use bombs "We'll use the one thing we've got more of "That's our minds" - I mean, like, come on man.

Pulp - Yeah. Are you thinking about now when you're singing that song? It doesn't feel like a nostalgia piece to me anymore. No I... That's what I'm proud of with the songs, I suppose. When you write a song, you don't know what its shelf life's gonna be You don't know if it's going to go off in six months or, you know, it might be, or seem passé.

Pulp We're moving on to what's not in the movie. I earlier asked what might have been inspirational for this film. What concert films. Was there something you didn't wanna do? "This is something concert films do all the time, - "we're not doing that." - Oh well. Yeah, it wasn't really, it was based on what we really wanted to do, but...

Pulp There's a couple of things like Jarvis mentioned earlier, experts talking about Pulp, who would be great, probably very nice to meet and maybe even film, but just didn't want to do that. Also, there's a new trend where people like yourself would be given an iPad, and then they watch themselves and they go, "Oh yeah."

Pulp Have you seen that? That's a thing, isn't it? Oh my God. And I'm thinking that's not right. Because if I did that to you and I gave you an iPad, you would not respond. And a camera's on you, there's all the sound people, you're like, "Oh, I'm feeling all these emotions." Like, no, this is all a bit-- It doesn't feel right.

Pulp And it wouldn't feel like it was coming from the world of Pulp. Most of the stuff that's not in that I would've loved to put in is the show itself. The show was two hours, I think, or maybe more. I had this fantastic intermission, which was lovely. It was just great. What did you do in the intermission?

Pulp Oh, it was a 15 minute intermission. I changed my clothes. - I was very sweaty. - Everyone went off, had a beer, the audience knew there was a countdown, there was a countdown happening, and then there were little, we'd made little video bits that would play. - It was its own little piece. - There was a song vote.

Pulp - Yeah, we had a song vote. - In the interval we would rehearse two songs and then people could choose which one they wanted. Yeah, it was a clapometer. Yeah and so we wouldn't find out which one they'd chosen until like five minutes before we went on for the second half. And the audience were asked, "If you would like to hear this, clap now."

Pulp The thing would go up, depending how much they cheered. Then we'd go to the other one on the other screen. You need to patent this for every band on earth. Yeah, it was brilliant fun. The countdown was amazing. The last 30 seconds, without asking them to, the entire audience counted down. It's like an irresistible human urge to join in with a countdown.

Pulp And it was lovely. So there was so much in the show, like the inflatable characters that came out for "The Fear." There was so much in it that we couldn't put in the film. Because one of the reasons was we wanted to keep it to an accessible 90 minute length. That was important. That may be the boring answer to this question.

Pulp We'll cut it out if it's boring. In the first documentary sequence in the movie, you talk about being really into sci fi and sci fi TV shows and wanting to live in space, Doctor Who, this kind of thing. And the next thing you say is, then I was a teenager and here's me writing about being in a band, like, making up band logos and outfits for the band.

Pulp What happened between space Jarvis, age, whatever that was, and like 15-year-old Ian McCulloch's hair, Jarvis? Being in a band seemed more accessible, like, I could get a guitar, I couldn't get a rocket. And there was no like branch of NASA near Sheffield. But what made you wanna trade the rocket for something?

Pulp I'd always, I think I'd wanted to be in a band from about the age of seven, and that was probably because I was born in 1963 and The Beatles were number one on the day I was born. And I was kind of... Even though I was, you know, I was a kid, so I didn't totally understand what they were about. But it created an atmosphere.

Pulp The Beatles really encouraged so many people to form bands because they were normal kids from Liverpool and they wrote their own songs, you know. And so that was an amazing kind of, "Ooh, I could do that." I have to say, I totally expected you would say Bowie. Bowie was like... David Bowie's first greatest hits Changesonebowie, that was the first LP - I bought with my own money.

Pulp - Wow. So yeah, so that would have been when I was like 13 or 14. I mean, Space Oddity. Space Oddity is good, yeah. That's my, me and my wife do that at karaoke. - Really? - I'm Major Tom - and she's ground control. - That's good. That's good, I didn't know that, that's excellent. She sings the first bit, and then I come in, Here am I sitting in my tin can - Wow.

Pulp - Yeah. I even do a bit of a floaty thing. OK, here's another thing not in the film. You show the equation of what makes Pulp. You have this revelation, this is what Pulp's music is going to be.

And the equation is Barry White plus eurodisco plus gritty northern realism equals the future, AKA your music. You tell us in the movie about Barry White, he's smooth and awesome. You're from the land that invented gritty northern realism, but, I can probably guess, where did eurodisco come in? Right before that you were post-punk, that's what you were into.

And the equation is Eurodisco came in in the form of a portable keyboard that I stole from my grandmother. My granddad had bought her this Yamaha Portasound keyboard like a Casio kind of keyboard that was battery operated, and it had preset rhythms in it. And there was a disco setting and I loved it. It was like... And I...

And the equation is After I'd fallen from the window, you saw the bit where I fell from the window. I spent quite a long time in hospital recuperating and... I wanted to try and write songs but I knew that I couldn't have a guitar because I was on this ward, it was very old fashioned, like a long, thin room with all beds along either side.

And the equation is So, you were in with a lot of other blokes, like miners who'd had like some pit accident or whatever. So you're not gonna be there strumming. With like, "Fucking shut up. "I'm trying to sleep." Or whatever. So with the keyboard, it had a headphone port so I could listen to it and tinkle away. And I wrote a few songs and I think, maybe because I was bed ridden at that point, the idea of dancing was very appealing to me.

And the equation is So I started to use the disco setting quite a lot and wrote a lot of songs, all of which had death in the title. I mean, this is, so the Casio, the presets on a Casio keyboard were the major inspiration for the - new Pulp sound? - Yeah, because then I did get a Casio years later in the... And that's what I wrote "Common People" on.

And the equation is There was a kind of a... She told me that her dad was loaded I said "In that case, I'll have rum and Coca-Cola" She said "Fine" Let's move on to my next chapter. OK. Because something that is in the film is the importance of style in the concept of Pulp. So the next chapter that we're gonna talk about is, I'm calling it Dapper Suits.

And the equation is It consists of one question for both of you. Where do you get your dapper suits? Do you want to go first? You've got the-- I mean, you're the suit guy. This is a one off for me. This is his default setting. Yeah. Well, I used to get them from jumble sales. What? Well, because people were just throwing clothes away and...

And the equation is - Sure. - And that was in the '80s so it was things from the '70s that they were throwing away and I kind of liked them. But that's kind of disappeared now. And charity shops in the UK are terrible now. It's all colour coded and not very good. So now I... There's a tailor in Paris called called Husbands and he makes really good clothes and nice kind of slightly flared trousers, so I get quite a lot of things from him.

And the equation is I was hoping you would mention a specific tailor, because I wanna know what the challenge is that other tailors cannot overcome when it comes to making a perfect Jarvis Cocker suit. It has to have shoulders that stick up a bit. You might have-- I don't know if I can show you this seam. So, the seam...

And the equation is Can we zoom in on this, please? Thank you. The seam kind of goes backwards towards... - Oh yeah it does. - The back a bit. So that makes the shoulders stand up a bit more. And the trousers have to be at least parallel or just a little bit flared. Not like flappy flap, flap flap. - You know what I mean?

And the equation is - Yeah. They used to be really flappy and people would ride a motorbike, it'd be... - Like wings trying to take off. - Yeah. You, Garth? Where did you get-- For those who are listening at home and not watching, This is an amazing corduroy outfit. Thanks. - That's very nice of you. - You're welcome. Well, I was just thinking, as you're asking that, "Oh, I know the answer to this is a little odd."

And the equation is What it is, I've only really got one proper suit. The premiere for this film, the first time it was shown was in London, and two days before that premiere was my father-in-law's funeral. And he was great, he was a lovely guy, but he was nearly 91, so it was O-- it was lovely. And it was-- I just felt weird if I wore the same suit.

And the equation is Know what I mean? I thought, "I've gotta get something else." So I thought, and I'd seen this in a shop near where we live in France. So I thought, "I'll go for it." And my wife, basically, I've got nothing on me that my, my wife's great, she's a fashion designer, so she-- I've never bought my own clothes, she goes, "Get that."

And the equation is And so I met her at the shop, she went, "Yep, get that." So that's how it happened. I love that a fashion designer married somebody who has literally two suits to their name. Yeah, yeah. No I've never picked it. I very rarely buy clothes. But when I have done, my wife just puts me in the changing room, this is absolutely true, she puts me in the changing room and says, "Wait there."

And the equation is And then things just come over the top and then-- But there's no umming and ahing I come out and go, "These are nice." She goes, "No, take that off. That's terrible. Take it off." And she's been good so far. So yeah. Thirty years. I'm glad it worked out. It did, yeah. She's great.

Final chapter Cartoons. Garth, you're famed for a couple of the best animated movies ever, Sing and the cunningly named sequel, which is called Sing 2. We really went for it on that title, didn't we? - Where did you... - What could we call it? Crazy. Were you high that day? That's amazing. I would say for somebody though, who always, your work always has this warm quality.

Final chapter For those who don't know, this is the gentleman that did Blur's "Coffee & TV" video, Just some of the greatest-- Right? With the little milk carton, for those who don't know. It's totally beautiful and totally lovely, but also totally absurd and totally like silly. And I'm wondering why those seem to go together for you.

Final chapter Because at first blush, it doesn't seem like they would. - Something warm... - I'm not sure I've got a good, like a neat podcasty answer, but I think it's a bit like you were saying earlier about, What's the, why the combination of absurd and the wonderful and the tingle. It's sort of everything we've been talking about.

Final chapter I just feel I'm drawn to things that give me that feeling. And I tend to find they come from surprising places. All the ideas for the videos that worked, I wasn't trying to think of it. They were just an emotional response to the music. And it was the same working with you on this film. It's just following it.

Final chapter And with the animated films, how pop music can be... A silly song, that people might think is silly, can be really meaningful in the right ways. It could suddenly-- Like when we had the funeral, for my father-in-law, as the coffin went away for the, to the crematorium, we played his favourite song, which is Bert Kaempfert's "A Swingin' Safari".

Final chapter You know that one goes... It's a really sort of silly little song, but in that context, everyone was in tears. It was lovely, we were happy, but also very moved. And I think, I love that balance. If it's too like sad and the song's sad, I'm a bit like, "Ooh, easy now." But if you can find a way in that just balances it, that's my favourite.

Final chapter And the same with humour. If you can find a way for it to be sweet but also funny, then, I just like that balance. Jarvis Cocker and Garth Jennings, their funny, sweet and also rockin' movie

Pulp What Do You Do For An Encore? is streaming exclusively on MUBI right now. And that's the MUBI Podcast for this week. Follow us for more great stories from great filmmakers. If you dug this, you should now flip back a few episodes. We just wrapped a season about great needle drops in movies, focusing on tunes from the UK in the '80s and '90s.

Pulp We get into music from Pet Shop Boys, The Specials, Soul ll Soul. And I spoke to some of the members of those bands too. Check it out. And now let's roll credits. This episode was written and hosted by me, Rico Gagliano. Ciara McEniff is our producer, with help from assistant producer, Kat Kowalczyk.

Pulp Audio and video editing by Ela Kazdal. It was recorded by Stu Pot Productions. Mastering by Steven Colon. Our theme music was composed by Yuri Suzuki. This episode would have been impossible without the help of Dylan Polacek, Taylor Thomas and the crew at the Regal Union Square cinema in New York City.

Pulp Thanks also to Irene Musumeci. The MUBI Podcast is executive produced by me, along with Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. And finally, to watch the best in cinema, subscribe to MUBI at mubi.com Thanks for watching and or listening. Go watch some movies. Mis-Shapes unite!

PULP live! — Jarvis Cocker & Garth Jennings capture the power of pop

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin