Decoder (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | decoder |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German , English , Portuguese |
| Publishing year | 1984 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Muscha |
| script |
Klaus Maeck Volker Schäfer Trini Trimpop Muscha |
| production |
Klaus Maeck Muscha Volker Schäfer Trini Trimpop Paul Nellen (Ed.) |
| music |
Dave Ball Genesis P-Orridge FM Unit Jon Caffery Alexander von Borsig Matt Johnson |
| camera | Johanna Heer |
| cut |
Muscha Klaus Maeck Volker Schäfer Eva Will |
| occupation | |
| |
Decoder is a film about cyberpunk and counterculture from 1984 , shot in the Federal Republic of Germany . Directed by Muscha , who also wrote the script together with Klaus Maeck , Volker Schäfer and Trini Trimpop . The film is roughly based on the book The Job , written by William S. Burroughs , who also appears in the film.
Bill Rice plays Hunter, a government agent hired to suppress dissidents. FM Einheit represents the employee of a hamburger fast food restaurant called H-Burger who discovers that by changing from doodle sound to industrial sounds, it is possible to cause unrest and a revolution against the looming power of the government. This utopia is based on Burroughs' theories about the electronic revolution .
Decoder was only shot on a budget. However, the producers were able to attract a number of well-known personalities from the counterculture and industrial scene to the project. Among other impacted William S. Burroughs , Genesis P-Orridge and Christiane F. with, as bands like Soft Cell , Psychic TV , Einstürzende Neubauten and The The .
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was produced by Klaus Maeck and Muscha and was released in 1984 in either a vinyl or CD version on the Hamburg indie label What's So Funny About .
| Interpreter | title |
|---|---|
| Dave Ball , Genesis P-Orridge | Muzak For Frogs |
| Matt Johnson | Three Orange Kisses From Kazan |
| Dave Ball , Genesis P-Orridge | Dream |
| Dave Ball , Genesis P-Orridge | Main theme |
| Dave Ball , Genesis P-Orridge | Sex & The Married Frog |
| FM unit , Jon Caffery | Riots |
| Genesis P-Orridge | information |
| FM unit , Jon Caffery , Alexander von Borsig | Muzak Decoding / Dream Machine / Pirates |
| Collapsing new buildings | Compressed metal |
| Dave Ball , Genesis P-Orridge | Main Theme - Finale |
Version on video
VHS
The film was released on VHS in four countries : Germany , Great Britain , Italy and Japan .
DVD
The film was released on DVD as a CD / DVD set with soundtrack in Great Britain on December 15, 2009, in America on February 16, 2010 and since July 29, 2014 in Germany . A DVD edition has been announced for Italy since 2011.
criticism
“It's about manipulating people through and with sounds, in short, about functional music , Muzak, - says Muscha. What is Muzak ? Sounds in the elevator, Crusaders in the Karstadt cake boutique, Hazy Osterwald at Edeka ...? Perhaps a few reflections from competent analysts on the effect of sound: The Munich anthroposophist Fritz Büchtger believed that music is a reflection of a higher order, '... an inner world of spiritual beings in which every person lives in his subconscious.' Alexander Scriabin wrapped his 'Poeme de l'ecstase' in the thematic circle active and passive ... The active circle includes will, self-assertion and protest, passive longing, dream and floating. The question of why music exists at all seems superfluous to most people; many answer that music is for relaxation, for aesthetic enjoyment, for bridging boredom, for spiritual elevation, for edification. Nevertheless it is undisputed that, in addition to this, in works of classical music, but also in the archaic musical cultures of Asia and Africa, a spiritual force can be experienced which can break the boundaries of normal consciousness. Such tones and others (muzak) can awaken idle and latent desires of the individual if the basic conditions, the right receptivity and a suitable climate are present. FM, the DECODER, has seen through these connections and is immune from relapse into regressive, manic-myatic states. He records the notes of sprinkling music from department stores and fast-food palaces. He chops up the sounds, decodes and decodes them, he discovers the psychological strategy of these muzak, the connection between acoustic junk and plastic food. "
“What Muscha doesn't like is over-intellectualization in the film. 'It was important,' he says to DECODER, 'to destroy the story in such a way that it does not become a socially critical picture book story.' ... when asked about directors of German films: 'I would rather recommend people like Wenders to publish a photo book with essays… Schlöndorff … it's like watching the revolution with a dry Martini in hand from the balcony and then saying: I was there.' Muscha not only makes films, he lives film. 'Reproduced feelings have always touched me more than everyday feelings. I don't give a shit about reality. It's like I'm always in a production that I'm doing. ' The obsessive relationship to the world of moving images also has an impact on the work. DECODER is very focused. The film sounds, thrills, shines. ... A treat for the eye-opener. Each of the main characters is assigned its own light color. Other lighting ideas allow rooms (for example at the city pirates' celebrations) to re-emerge in architectures of fire and light or play with [sic] images projected onto bodies and faces. Lust for beautiful, violent pictures, illumination. 'I don't really care what topic a film is about,' says Muscha. I think of a sentence from Hitchcock: 'All I want is to make people scream by technical means.' "
“A 'decoder' here: Tönezersetzer searches for new tones on his mixing desk in order to find an acoustic weapon against the rain of the manipulative functional music 'Muzak'. To this end, he allies himself with an urban guerrilla and falls out with his girlfriend, who works in a peep show. An intriguing topic - possible power and control function of sounds in a surveillance state - turns into a formally intrusive, half-baked mixture of punk anarchy, crime and video plus sound experiments, enriched with cynical cruelty to animals. "
literature
- Klaus Maeck, Walter Hartmann: DECODER manual - Muzak, cut-ups, pirates, frogs, burgers, the film . TRIKONT Verlag, Duisburg 1984, ISBN 3-88974-100-2
Web links
- DECODER in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Decoder fansite
Individual evidence
- ^ Time Capsule of Almost Forgotten Films
- ↑ Motherboard ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , VICE .
- ↑ iTunes
- ↑ a b Decoder fan page - overview
- ↑ Amazon UK
- ↑ Amazon US
- ↑ Amazon DE
- ↑ a b 34th Berlin International Film Festival
- ↑ Cable one ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
