Show notes
In time for the platinum jubilee, enjoy this remastered reissue of lost episode 34 in which film doctors Paula Blair and Andrew Shail talk about the Queen and Freddie Mercury biopic from 2018 (BBFC cert. 12A). We get into the film’s troubled production context, Andrew’s love of the band’s music and its significance in film culture, and we touch on the depiction of Mercury’s sexuality, persona and AIDS, the amalgamated supporting characters, the narrative structure and much more. Enjoy and please give this episode a good rating and share with a friend!
Music: commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license.
Original episode with auto-captions
Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity.
New intro recorded with Zencastr on 15 April 2022. Access Behind the Scenes recordings on Patreon.
Automated Transcript
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hello I’m cold up there and you’re listening to the audio facial cultures the podcast that explores lots of different areas and found the arts and media I’ve got a cheekily time to re issue for you today the last of our lost episodes is number thirty four after fresh showed if the screening chats with Dr Andrew she’ll way back in twenty eighteen I thank the Ximen wraps today in the Freddie Mercury and queen biopic west a troubled production history the timing of this re release it’s a bit tongue in cheek and won’t matter told if you’re playing this at any other point in the future but this falls in the wake of Queen Elizabeth the second’s platinum jubilee I’m not trying to be political hello it’s no secret that I wouldn’t mind having a go at some sort of children %HESITATION Chris say on these islands but here we are it seems like as good a week is Anne T. celebrates a British institution for me I choose not to be bisexual son of Parsi Indian parents whose four octave range singing voice and flamboyant stage persona made him perhaps the greatest rock performer of all time but that’s just me before catching up with four years younger Poland and Andre a massive thank you to our champion patrons over it PhD on dot com forward slash AP cultures he enjoyed lots of extra goodies and return for their support I really appreciate Charlotte’s for AV cultures part on socials as well especially if they’ve got a confidence boost her and store I can always use those for example at the suit one hundred and twelve gas John badger reached out on Twitter but his guest experience saying holy cari if I didn’t know me I think I was mildly intelligence your editing skills are on point I couldn’t be more pleased thank you you’re very welcome John ideal for quality service I may not be able to pay myself for my guests but quality phone conversation are guaranteed if you’re interested in being part of the show as a guest to worse to have your feet background alright head over to the contacts and cancels features that audio visual cultures dot com for night the show must go on so let’s go stone cold crazy and write the wild winds with this discussion of Bahamian Rhapsody swearing this button mainly including from the film or things to be a mercury is known to have Sadam performed we also discussed the film’s imagining of mercury sexuality and its diagnosis and of course we spend a lot of time on the music and depictions of the performances in the film J. enjoy and I cried and sometimes picking up do you want %HESITATION I don’t because I think it’s been a thing for both we yes it’s my choice yes we can the Bahamian up city which once cinematically amazing as well as having for me that is fiction you can always it’s going to one six I still love the cinema the woman next to me holding service because they were when it was one of those so much for this story that Friday sequence is made you want to get up and dance so I didn’t remember you know it was great we made a rather silly mistake of going well it’ll be at three thirty H. Sunday off the main screen tell me no need to book ahead seven point eight six seven seven this comes doing really well this room with a fantastic soundtrack of course but also from six AM to you can see queen in the studio recording their first album really experimental stereo and circles in order to show that that being really telling the sun did you know what to do of course the same standard effects have to be replicated in my answer there was all this flipping the sound from the because that’s my my brain works these days in the opening credits when I saw Bryan singer’s name he’s probably the obvious choice but also he’s just a name at the minute because he’s one of the many people he said here’s one of those but I don’t really know the details a good few people I have been completely switch yeah for this goes to the graphic pretty much three yeah this customer doing just inserting himself in the Freddie Mac for this he was in almost every show he was physically ready from the first one we see and he’s getting ready to go out and listen to a little because of the way up to the very long climactic scene live right everyone gets twenty real time I think it was even that’s why he makes the words differently in the version of a thing that you did and they did not rami Malek the same slightly different ways that was very did they do that thing with by that point according to what I have been getting ready for so many times yeah given the switchboard the pharmacist is very easy to she gin and tonics one but to do it and it was the thing about somebody like Freddie Mercury so treating he was this one of I think it may take a couple I think for quite awhile there were rumors that one might have taken on the role of Freddie Mercury great so I think it took them a long time to find Freddie it’s important when you’re doing a this is what these real people bring lots of with the message John deacon rule really that’s fine walking across the really well done cinematographic Freddie’s head injuries reduce stress and these extra Charlotte reviews he’s on stage some of the show’s kind of extreme close up which you can only do by completely computer generated in focus yeah there is going on with having it going the instruments almost twenty three that’s our bus where underneath it went on before the storm runs right up said Brian may’s guitar I think it is control in the next couple of shots coming out I come like a drunk looking down on them and it was what I’m submitting it was a it was different from we will rock you stem from it was thanks to so many of them they had so many out there so many there was one glaring omission for me and then I realize they’re saving it the stock may know I understanding it of course there has also the show must go on that was one of the tracks on that album I think it’s awesome response he was and of course someone says the show must go on so even though that was not the clean up of banks and stuff in the last few months they did the eight story having him realize he’s got it and then having the crisis these going to just make music thank for this and it’s happening fast and this time he knows his time is limited so it’s very we need to have come and find me when it’s ready and realize I can dance strong this was a bit of a brave posing and as the walking off stage of the live in concert in nineteen when he lived for six and a beta six years contains these and I just became old enough to go and see I’ve always loved playing music by the time I was really aware I didn’t think anything about and I dare say going nine the huge presence of queens in mine came with me was my older brother maybe it was just yeah I’m from the south going okay so we know about this green which is eighty three known about more nineteen seventies going in the nineteen eighties at the end of it we it’s very few hits from that album they did in the early nineteen eighties and the queen yeah Highlander the queen does movie soundtracks there’s so many different queens and queen I love the jokes about finding love with my account please there was always conflict what to do with businesses while you can have a single which is over six minutes long which is perhaps how the problem I’m having my as expected of a DM all right his name okay so while yeah okay sorry this reminds the wings well doing this we want songs that kids are going to be had a specific statement that maybe not seasonal it’s going to be the and then some you know I would become a song somebody’s six German children many references fine where we needed to see if on the way like a rock the way that these relationships whether whether it’s not really ready to do another in the long term he was there was a new version with somebody I didn’t get he wants it to be perfect and then moves on to situation where they just good friends by six having this is going from strength knowing it’s not someone who comes in you know he says merry I think this is Friday afternoon for a while but you yeah she dismissed that’s never any acting yeah he seems Neil yeah I think this guy told me it was his minders manager every day nothing about it I do you know if any of us I don’t know about that I didn’t know anything about it so anyway the character he’s quite an emotionally manipulative controlling relationship the calling of the city and state almost and take them away from clean every this CBS summer to do so it seems like he thinks on his face I’m not sure I’ve taken that up right it seems like he gets wind of this offer he gives it to the manager John rates and says it should come from here so it’s all John ready for anything sorry is it could go either way and his idea returns are not some of it gets really hurt that they’re trying to break away from the and so but then it ends up later on doing it because this guy Paul is obviously one trying to siphon away from history France %HESITATION okay because yeah one of the best number I was really just an instance of an the case was over it was welcome to the forty in some in some of the albums yeah this is going to cost was this is somebody gives me an extra seven when the the recording an album right it wasn’t a modern thing that happened when I was three different events and six okay yeah re release do you have a sense the firm says this is Anthony from breaking get changing the dressing up okay London then you wouldn’t have thought that you she had a mistake three from the also this is the having this yeah we get you can get around it by just not having sex in fact with NATO’s so there’s no signs of heroin use or anything like cocaine use their hands heavy drug use going on get rid I think it he’s been led into this it’s almost like he’s call has wanted all the things in the failed the state becomes his best you know he’s a puppet master name Freddy gets Weissman merry comes once the reality it must have been but it’s just %HESITATION thing of all land when Freddie gets my stamp click on the one night stand or any Germany when merry called for five minutes from England fires on the spot like it’s sort of a seven everyone seeing again there’s always a knowledge base of things are you know you’ve gone wrong that’s when all the freaks come but that’s all taxes and I’m not the case Intel type thing you know he gets his money for doing all the media and by Friday my has anybody you don’t know to what extent anything straight actually station so maybe it’s a moment fading sorry for Friday that things happen it’s hard to know what the trees and hippos now could save this film which was finally ready we in a sense he was a ticket to the final when it came to do yeah yeah there you have it you’ve been taken apart just torn off to one side has been very Katie being quite confirmed with my family often really split yeah keep seeming to think that she needs it belongs to him yeah because the noise makes on this day we also have to point out that the way the film seems to make it ideal for families to get back together after Freddie has this crisis in Germany while buttons and pull in the license he’s in a relationship and also realizing the second going from nixes really wants to get nineteen point zero twenty one respond to the small people are comedy quartet whenever they recorded together since a breeding whenever there’s conflict one just needs to make it yeah everything’s fine so this one is complete another one bites the dust it’s just about getting anyone to do any work getting a physical fight and then I think it’s off screen it’s just John deacon yeah right yeah and I go three great wait wait wait a minute so there were these moments always gonna go wrong is going to come back together because their rooms didn’t even we would like to do and then of course when we get back together shortly before live eight and almost certainly didn’t happen because they messed it up together so you thank %HESITATION occasion either her sure more than a week Anthony it’s a working again a moment and I’m sorry the comedy of the film in dramas like this is really essential to have this moments here and there and a few years yeah it works very well and it’s very tightly times and everything the Christ really with it because it was great seeing it with I meant for the people who were clearly how can a day on not only does one is sure one moment of the woman next to me said during the summer end of it when they were recorded along to the on from the house and I was trying to persuade the executive of the MI paste by minus to release but he knows these online and I was and it wasn’t what it was before do this all right now but it’s going to be new yeah pretty plays a bit of opera it’s going to be a musical theater it’s going to be fantastic and he goes no one listens to all and the woman next to me when I heard from a seventy mistake you’re talking to the screen the screen is if there’s no one else yeah but yeah it was it was amazing the moment it was raining we watched it at home well I think I got really excited and saying things are going so I and we’re gonna be out of this building in about three minutes thank you well I am saying that we shades D. another proper operating as well a bit later when we got time to make some stuff I think is I think we’re going to need to get some details that we aren’t able to do at the moment one question for you %HESITATION did you cry I welled up a fair few times I have to say me too the jets that’s the kind of film where I’d wanna fill me with a disabled people see how much they are always the weather and I want to see when and where they only have get a free opening credits the twentieth century fox yes I did a special version of the twenty three folks from with cinemascope extension which was a rock version %HESITATION with lead guitarist Rafiq Bhatia I’d like to know thank you it wouldn’t surprise me Brian made today I think so I think this is why we need to go except from if you’re using the number for your records he was a British citizen from birth probably something to do with the fact that his father was he worked at the British colonial office in Zanzibar also that he was he was a member of several other bands before he introduced himself to smile that’s one of those ways in which they’re simplifying reforms of Larry you rex I just realized that I completely missed the Kenny Everett at the mouth I was in I didn’t realize that but I was a kid so slow why here even talking to the media on your part because I was like this is familiar I think that this is supposed to be somebody who I know come look at who it is but yeah it’s can well and the apparently that was a big part of the union reps to getting after it was but they were already made is there a quite flamboyant and that it was ever who first put that someone intent on national radio station on capitol Monday in the capital radio itself haven’t actually accepted the song ever it just pretended to accidentally play it John McCain ever played the some thirty six times in one day I thought there was something to do with it being a baby science to something else that’s the way that you tend to get someone to get airplay that doesn’t fit with the I could quite possibly spending mostly just reading stuff about thirty minutes server very firmly two three we’ve been reading about mowing get some clarification so interesting actually the production context it does seem to have been quite a dog for a long process yeah seconds with the director because we have both noticed at Baxter Fletcher was in there executive producer credit is often quite a waiting list of executive producers from yeah and this can mean quite a few things by inductively just case it turns out that he got an executive producer credit because he directed something like the last quarter of principal photography and of course started on editing as well did a lot post production director stuff as well after Bryan singer has what seems to be a family crisis yeah because I think I think a remember reasonably things like that but it’s just one of those fleeting things that you read and didn’t really pay much attention to it time and we’re also constantly having production news about films that’s all no it’s going to be coming out for several years yeah that we don’t get a heads up so we set the stuff for some catering and then suddenly there’s a film being released so it seems that this film has been in production one from another well the it’s been being made because this pre production in one form or another since twenty ten and so we’re quite lucky to finally got a film out of the big team of people who were involved in this which included Jim beach repairs in the film police who has played in the film very well by Tom Holland that someone that doesn’t do much actual using his face but I think then it’s just the person who you cost is people who want for express via place those people very well he’s become a real stalwart I think if British film he’s been in so many days and take up also should have been found here is fighting and that part I think it for sure members wasn’t he the real reason he won and prior to the carribean in the second and third seconds ones that’s my first memory of him yeah but yes he’s good at playing those characters that was nice actually to CM as one of the back bone characters and Bahamian upstate it was nice to see him as a guy in his reading here about a research project undertaken in twenty sixteen to understand the appeal behind Freddie mercury’s voice which president for that he definitely had a vocal range of just over three octaves which is quite some right and that he has a fast of a broader than the other thing is that we get from having a scientific explanation of why this guy’s voice was quite amazing okay put the sounds on me we’re in a situation of being really unable to tell with this part of the sounds are it seems to have been placing a layer of forty are from old recordings of Freddie mercury’s voice on top of what we’re getting from Ron Maddox force them certain points where it’s running Malick singing and then certain points where it gets a decidedly different quality of because he’s trying to sound as much like Freddie Mac as possible so the real uncertainty about his voice to getting anyone what of course Dr Barone I have decided to compare the size of our queen collections mine’s quite fragmented though because a fellow friends it’s just a few songs from lots of different albums I thought it was from someone else’s special collection sweet lady one of the lessons and so much of the upper this is the one with the line that’s really killed in the phone right one of them says this you call me sweet like I’m some kind of cheese some of the lyrics to some of the lesser known songs sound weird but it’s not like the lyrics to that mornin songs on tweet it we just got used to these very weird things that you say in a big operatic voice when singing the songs and you do rarely sang the songs particularly doing karaoke other Beltre’s it’s safe you can call them this because a lot of things to get serious I think to try and give things a better border where they basically think it by the film as biopic genre it feels like the wrong term sub genre feels like it doesn’t do it enough justice but the biopic as a mode of storytelling in film is something I find really fascinating the overwhelming narrative and biopics generally tends to be the great and history services but this one central character he’s the hero or anti hero of the thing I think what I really liked about this is that it’s not titled Friday it’s not type of mercury X. title but he may not say I’m not very much Freddie mercury’s songs but it does mean is more about the bonds and they are such a huge feature and so much is made of the bands in the film especially them all referring to each other’s family they find their paper I find their tribe that’s part of the look of the film when someone refers to green is very friendly and Freddie goes then all my family in the early stages not these people are my family and then after you go through a crisis and it goes back and he arranges this reunion with them then he says your my faithful that calls back to the very first meeting I have with people from nine AM Miami Freddie says where the mess but don’t fret and the other members of the band talk about as being a fun night because none of us fat and the people that we are doing this for don’t fret wear a different kind of family so at Kohl’s box that so Friday and sept and say that but he’s part of that discussion they are saying that my hands the films about queen back coming as clean as they could possibly get you off the first trying lots of different ways of doing it and getting it right at some points and not getting it right now points and I suppose that there’s generally fit with the stress of what I’ve seen and I do get the sense that we’ve got lots of moments when we’re getting a fictionalized account which you might be trying to make everyone appeared to be better people than they actually were and it definitely begin the fictionalized accounts which is making it one appeared to be a lot more power I think in the way they speaking yeah the people nevertheless even for the metric that monologue about fruit flies wow I think it is it’s done between two people who are looking at each other yeah definitely come here it’s an extremely heavy rain I mean turn around sell dying poor suffering in taming taming ran looking away from each other and talking quite quietly and intimately away from the other person and they must be made or so parts also Freddie’s clearly not while it also seems to be something of a rule now the you start films in media Raz for a minute or so and then you go back and start to the beginning that’s just how you do it but I suppose it’s not even the media rights because that means in the middle Steinman we’re talking still in the midst right near the edge well it’s like the CODESA and music acts establishing the same addressing the endpoint and then going back and then you can actually at the end our first few moments on this front America waking up in the morning of the live it comes at the cost a couple of times and then that’s it and then suddenly after stadium he’s getting ready to go on stage or anything from hauling waiting I’m just about to go on stage and then reflect back to him working as a baggage handler Heathrow in nineteen seventy until often going to be about getting back up to this moment I serve right from the beginning it’s made clear that yeah you will note that this is going to be a story about someone getting it I’m more sure that we know that you know and we’re gonna get back but first let’s go and do a story about people making music the most fun bits were when the band and playing time to come up with something that’s catchy when they sell a van and pay for a couple of days in a recording studio and I just making stuff up as they go along and the recording the album that’s called queen might even between two actually well it’s got seven seas around it because that’s the seven seas rise I first hit and it’s one that most people haven’t even heard of and it’s very hard not much guitar and that was really enjoyable certain people experimenting insuring how big they were on stereo such that they will actually start to where the tapes out they recording is they’ve been recorded over so many times and they apparently they would know what that this the point would have to stop re recording and recording lies of sound on these types because if you held it up you could see through it and I just love this idea that the recording medium suffers from having some which pertain to it might just start to disintegrate where is the way we record now the recording medium we don’t think of it as something that has material now it sells them quite virtue of this nightmare is burned from the very earliest appointment a recording being really into using stereo which wasn’t new technology in your average person’s home music system hysteria been around in cinema since the shift to white screen star had been normal since four track stereo sound a bit normal since and being that band here basically pine in the music video while I’m running please bring a song which laments the death of radio because of the size of the music the foreign army radio Gaga and being around that was huge on getting audiences to be part of that case they hit those three not stereo music video %HESITATION mornings in part I. gigs and they didn’t even do the music video bet with any sort of pain let’s invent music without having that account of an invention story they just had it so that one of those magical realist moments occurred where the couple of images from the Bahamian up the video just appeared in the background is one of the scenes and I was there you know over the noise that they invented music video on we got a lot of boxes we were talking earlier record number eight the audience participation because I was saying that I haven’t made a trade with me before hi much of their work was involving the audience I remember being at the fourteen or so and being just totally captivated by we were rocky and it’s such a simple notate the thump class you know from from clap read that rest is really important well let’s step four four one three three four the sound is yeah it just hadn’t dawned on me but then maybe that’s because I was too young for crane to fully appreciate crane by the time I was aware of them U. S. hearing queen songs on the radio their songs were on and films on compilation albums I was getting and that would see the occasional video if I was watchin MTV VH one or one of the music channels as a teenager so it that participation but just haven’t really checked with me and tell me anything on the phone today and of course we were rocking it sends me in London and they make the narrative %HESITATION I’m not really fascinating it’s nice to see that story of the pond really laughing and interacting with their audience so much because so many biopics and even fiction films about musicians and bands so much Batman and upping the adoration but not really thinking about it their fans not really having much relations with them but this was so different and even as an audience member saying the Salem he felt like part of it and there was so much participation actually in the audience you people clapping and stomping their fates and speaking to the screen and you know and it was a code violation that I think Sakshi exact %HESITATION and if I’m like that when you’re engaging directly with them and they audiences that are way fast and each other those legendary Mexico around about the different versions that for you would do if the federal yeah you’ve got saying we have we we did we went to this concert well okay while this comes that way did it so that there was twenty five not so we have to remember that back when I was a look at this okay there’s also some very things we say at the end he would of course at some point guard now the going is over but we have to do it in some way so if I simply say well you’re good and he would often say you fuckers it good and then probably like once or twice he just went fuck you as if the guy %HESITATION content do you or do you assume that evidently it no he done that well before it was something to do with it bye bye I’ve got a D. V. D. some of queen during a concert in Montreal in the late seventies he stops awfully close by them hello this is wrong he’s just wearing these tiny shorts it’s not so hot AP just shedding light on for their dynamic case made hi Amy so can addicts is the for you to use the person maybe that’s why I felt some degree of affinity with anything alive is because he would not stay still loves the kids really fidgety anyway I think even relative to other kids at risk but you see that and someone he’s become the superstar and has managed to make something graceful and beautiful and engaging articles mace ments there was a point I think it was with the miracle album in nineteen eighty nine well one of the songs that they did and also just while I’m on this page the cover for the album %HESITATION yeah I really did not want to have to stick together so that between them they have one two three five five online there’s no K. all his views but we seem to have pretty much resigned to just wander into it what details eyes anyway one of songs is the miracle the video for that they didn’t use the bans the use these for kids I think the bond to pay for about the last ten seconds of the song service for kids and they do the entire song as queen in each one of these kids whose London has learned how to do the person that I think so because they want to learn how to do it right to take a look at what he’s learned how to do John deacon has just learned how to stand very still complete and expressive one is not available to take residents about Spain he does with the the customer is not happy for the victory of the problems from testicular across the states back and forth a part of the band said when they finished watching over from happening because a banner that read the music that was being found they said can we do an anti tool for okay this story many of the songs I have not heard of such a long time they did want to three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen if you count the soundtrack to Flash Gordon and of course the kind of magic which is essentially the soundtrack to highland fifteen albums including the made in half an hour when the when the recording and fuss free months of Freddie mercury’s death that’s well over a hundred solution can we name more than twenty of the top of our heads that’s one of the things I suppose about this was that it said you know these fifteen green songs that you know your going to happen now that was the big when he learns he’s got aids they play a little bit of wants to live forever without making any mention at all of them having recorded kind of magic because that seems to be what they were recording when they did a lot of it comes out yeah we must not get the satisfaction figures mixed up with reality it’s easy to see that as a documentary Hey Mike Sanders %HESITATION talking about earlier silences the characterization of everybody like a lot of people’s characters you’re pretty flash story but also you know it’s brilliant to have more representation of north and Irish slash the people onscreen but it would just be lovely if it gets really not all psychopaths and manipulators our system thing or if both are better life class but you’re saying it seems like people I can the characters like camera mocha nations with lots of people I’m looking very yes it seems that a lot of the people who are real life people a link in the process to clean up the mess the several of them you are cleared customs in player will printer as the manager well pretty much ready made it public in November nineteen ninety one and a half days but it was an open secret by that point %HESITATION the cashier full friends are supposed to represent them in life if they refused TV footage as if that was a very yeah another piece of actual TV footage with somebody real quick before breaking away but as for her that she was not to care it could just be representative of that kind of thing happening in celebrity culture the towels for lots of money story nineteen seventy four press conference where he was going to be with them yeah they really pressed the issue with that press conference of their with the journalist he was really trying to press him about his sexuality and of course it’s a much bigger deal than the night but %HESITATION so it feels like it could be very speaking to today because we’re still not a point where it doesn’t matter and people are still forced to commemorate that moment my brain many strange women women well then he simply not panic when amazing well zing that’s quite a while speaking in this room the terrorists a sunfish an ATM sign mid summer murders when he playing Brian main said anybody wanna talk about music M. three times you know I like to listen to the actual recording about yeah that would be fascinating is that screen which is now going wouldn’t it be great if people just hands yeah about what we do yeah you know and also the humor coming through as well because people are pressing Friday by and seeming like he’s been ill and Brian may saying what a cold glass break anybody’s interested and Freddie sank there for members of this bond I’m not the leader of the band there four of us here in your own asking me questions why aren’t you asking anybody else cautions was quite as compact way of getting across quite a lot of points you know and maybe quite skating towards the press but also I think it’s probably reflective of what has happened since then because it feels like it’s gone much worse difficult home magazines you you go in there shall be no you go and get your messages and you just say these things attached to or women’s magazines and stuff and it’s just these snaps private moments of people having a holiday and they were in a bikini on a beach or people snapped in private moments on the night of eight this is trying to be human BN’s and paparazzi aren’t even allowed to have interviews with these people and the quote from information from patient list people divulging yeah selves and their relationships with other people we do really we have collectively as a culture about the private lives of other people so yeah this from was costing about asking this court brutal question of why do we have so much money because people buy their first names that sound a bit I think even the family members living in might have been Friday himself he says you know we belong to them the longer they both but it’s outside of them belongs to the people hello it represents that hadn’t mystic sites on the performance of the hedonism because it does feel like a performance it feels that you know that it’s just the the lavish party that he picks on many has Sydney bakeries but also the really intimate things like they might have copped city has the temple they have their own room and this massive Haris there’s not a huge amount of time spent on any of that but there’s enough shot reverse shots between him Nick Hans you get loads of Kate cops show up and the firm because it’s showing me that there also his farm lane police cannot stop it’s Friday there are few moments when their cats were looking straight at the camera with my cats got like with the crossed in the corner I wanted to just be cursed see that side of him DST pop outside of his life it’s performing side of his life said going to the masochistic gay clubs in Germany side of his life but he had this domestic life that was laughing and yes it was very lavish because laughing at this price that and the faction one of the music videos where it takes the form of this huge %HESITATION he’s not quite the right right right but %HESITATION GS stick policy where everyone’s wearing mosques in huge flamboyant gay and it seems that that’s the kind of stuff you wanted to help you didn’t want didn’t want to have you do wanna do debauchery yeah the flamboyant yeah German things being exciting and people wearing suits uniforms many of us would maybe have a fee is at some point of our lives who will try something because we just want to be different or we wanna CMI that kind of person so you try something you push your limits and then maybe after %HESITATION you go to one this is for me I’m not being true to myself and so you come back again and it seems like that may have been his thing certainly in the film version of Friday that was what happened and it seems like he was groomed and so not by this character poll but seems to have been manufactured items seven people so to see how easy that somebody can be and then the pressures of what Iran and he got somebody Kansi harping on EA and if you’re factoring with your band mates all the time anyway and it’s a perfect storm of things this man to somebody he’s manipulative enough can just quietly chip away chip away chip away convention or something you’re not and it’s inching his Friday his younger shoppers much more assertive your call first tries it on with him when he’s working really disrupts embarking yes ready that piano he’s singing he’s writing music holds your hand and insects I know he Freddie Mercury and Freddie saying you don’t know me at all this is all you see of me is that side of things and then the power relationship with switch to Brian yeah the firm’s leopard the film the director was saying you know how does this sound that you’re used to well that’s where the sound comes from in some places this is how creativity I like seeing creativity represented in films because sometimes it’s creativity with someone just a total genius senators could have just completely thought of this thing back genius thing it mystifies this in some places went to the other in the spectrum where that knowledge I’ve been dreaming upstate the first I’m here is because of the sound bridge over a talk about to cry and then it goes to the cook seems to be going on at this farm so it places that they got these ideas from hearing the cries cokes while they were working from okay this use that sense so there’s a list of people when they created only do is they just listen to their surroundings we just watch their surroundings and then write down what goes on so with that account of creativity we get a lot in the experience I have yeah nothing you just don’t think I remember you just set up on both go on yeah yeah it’s also a really comment it’s a nice light comedy sign bridge missile you know because everybody really laugh the thought saying because it takes you off guard you know because you’re expecting the protest art and then you hear you’re going to hire me it will be mostly noises the in quite a few queen songs even late in their career Brian made as their X. and Roger Taylor upset does not the lead singers are singers one for example is it wants to live forever how often are ex and he wants to live forever a Brian may for the record and gives the best idea serial found at some point this call is squeaky voice that goes on in a lot of queen songs and dance Roger Taney yeah got a quality to it which is not quite as wide ranging as Freddie mercury’s but it’s still a Queenstown but then the film did also go you know sometimes the songs just come out of Freddie stern it really comes up with the first couple of lines of beaming up states I’m just sitting in a gathering of bang bang bang bangs it out and it comes out of him like he’s puking Mike this is involuntary thing that has happened to me is finished if shaking and so that’s the kind of midway point it’s not him getting the sounds from his surroundings and it’s not him having %HESITATION I’m completely in control moment it’s kind of a free between which I think is probably more accurate neither of these extremes I’m trying to find out more about the accuracy of the Munich episode but it’s a very private thing you know and it feels more like an imagining of that period of his life and then you don’t know how much of that has been imposed I think you were saying earlier it feels like the stereotypical with the heteronormative fearful thought culture could pay card to know right away and then we don’t know exactly what parts Bryan singer was involved way we don’t know what Stam dexter Fletcher might have them that would be very different from Bryan singer it is runs from threat to have been there during the production process make for a fascinating account of how films function the taxes that you’re having done sunshine on nice deal he’s directed back musical things before so he would have had that energy especially because that’s based on the Proclaimers songs but it’s a bit like mamma mia and that it’s the characters that are singing the songs so it’s you know it’s not by the bandits by characters and then a burst into the song’s scene %HESITATION their plight to this story so those bank great things the crowd getting involved I imagine that could be him but then Bryan singer has dealt with massive scale stuff and lots of CG I have the stuff is welding the superhero films I think it was important to get in somebody who wasn’t just going to point cameras axes he added this film because it being able to create these virtual cameras that can go anywhere being able to create these subjective Schultz where something happens in the background is clearly just happening in somebody’s had been willing to do that I think it’s quite important to give this the drama which they deserve Sir I think you know surprising twist but nonetheless a good choice actually it is left and which bits of this reflection bits in which yeah the rainy wonderful snow in net maybe it’s an archives yeah accessing it yeah because I mean even just that idea of Willis directors completed most of the film but has not gone a while so what do we date they have to get somebody else and then you’re a director in your really good director in your own rights but it’s not your fans a director for hire Nagy he has to finish it and try and have some sort of continuity with what’s already been done I mean that must be really difficult we hear more about this these days about people getting rotating partway through a project yeah directing from somebody else because I have been with soda in it of course you have a large three seven dexter Fletcher she’s missed rooms finely guessing may yeah seven years it’s a film about green it’s mostly down to about two thirds of its done somebody needs to bring it on home you would quite happily both directed in the start of somebody else and just take an executive producer credit with you just to get the film made all up so let me hear about what’s happening with the Terry Gilliam version of going to help you find I finally being made yeah that’s right but it seems that it has finally been made but then there’s a legal battle happening over whether it can be released and I think at this point this phone’s been waiting in the pipeline for so long however you want he’s standing right getting this thing released do it daily for the sake of the film for the sake of all Americans all these people’s lives that’s the thing it’s hundreds of people’s labor goes into they sayings and whatever’s going on with Bryan singer fees have stuff out and then in the past while this is a film that people need to say because this is a by Friday it’s about playing and try to understand the phone belongs to all of us it’s one of those it’s a story that belongs to all of us and Freddie is still so very low that crowded that we ran alone tells you that because Susan manning I think an older cried and I would strongly suspect a lot of those people who are fans in the day you know that young people and the day you have to work the band and probably saw them life and everything like that woman we spoke to the setting aside years using the Antares the other ninety chat whether at the end and she just loved it so much I mean I think if they put it on straight away again to the south American to after quicken books of his manager to see how I was doing in the states because the relationship between the U. S. fans I’m quite okay from the green that was mentioned in the film queen broke the U. S. quite early but then as the phone went out stopped touring in the US because of the video for I want to make correct very stressed I wouldn’t show that they’re too conservative and it was fascinating that saying my Freddy the man space because he gets the blame of but it wasn’t his idea yeah because it was Roger wasn’t sure it was he wrote the song and it was his idea to have some %HESITATION cross straps you in play women but it all gets in the presses or they’ll get to the end and scarecrows on Friday in the states it’s only been out for three days but it’s done pretty amazingly at estimated fifty million for these first three days that’s quite alright fifty million for a film with a budget of fifty two million on its opening weekend it’s been awesome appetizers the firm has every reason to do amazing cameos well judging by today I would say a while here because of the high on the show for the Tyneside to be thought popped on a Sunday afternoon when did it come out in the case and I think just a few days ago the danger does this count as its opening weekend here at hospital if you need to check I do have with people some critics have been Smith they have may I think there are bets where the added and then sings my dipping back row play other bets where the C. GI helping the cinematography was Belfius for me especially that could go injuries the bus but sewers and into the tour bus in there any ass I’m not window transition in the from one screen I thought you know that would elect Kate maybe fifteen years ago LX nine back it’s fifteen years old stop transition and could have been a lot smoother but then maybe so much of their budget went on reconstructing Wembley because it was an eighty five because it took the lion’s head sets what we just did that because of the front but the rest was computer generated yep and that would have been a lot of the C. T. I. puts it would it not something that bag and not many people on the stage he’ll just to give it a day at work it’s opening weekend was last weekend this is its second weekend in the UK days during storms I would say this is been raining on them to standards to have a center near its maternity have lost touch with night but I was very good friends say when I worked in Tesco years ago she was just the hugest queen and Freddie Mercury fun and the whole world to see George Friday and would follow some of the tribute bands and it always goes in them I’m trying to remember if the tribute act that she’s going to say the tribute act I was trying to remember the name of his flash Harry and the peace to Northern Ireland I know that people like her would be the first in line for this film %HESITATION probably see it multiple times I would say this is one okay a lot of repeat custom this whole podcast episode on the center is in at the %HESITATION what films have you seen more than once at the cinema Ghostbusters twenty sixteen how many times twice and that the right one and three times and some of them because I’ve never seen a no more than once in the cinema it just fails even when they’re amazing I just have the patience to wait yeah I think the second US marshals that’s all I think I saw twice invalid code on which one was up the spy who shagged me without a for sure our website maybe it was a spatial let’s guess is another Mike Myers thank it was the one way faster Graham first name is Gordon powers count on international man of mystery nine ninety seven that was spacious rooms at this price segment in the third one was Austin powers in Goldmember the other two I think I saw a lot of sense and I think also the fact from twice in the cinema there’s probably others have sentencing minimums I seen dawn of the dead and site specific screenings of the film festival twice once was a Halloween screening and consequent shopping center so you’re and shopping malls schools one thing down on that initial come off and it was a mid night thing as for the phone this is two hundred people most of us made up of some thank you and the other time was all planned that alive sign track record in water from homes and nursing well there’s a green connection here because not only is this the band he gas %HESITATION soundtrack albums for film this is a band whose music was it just the music of Freddie mercury’s used as positive Giorgio Marin his soundtrack for metropolis all right I don’t know actually in queens the first quite big fans of a cinema and so called music videos include little snippets yeah references to other films and the music video for radio guy got a bit of help from the top this is the group who when they had the opportunity they’d like to orchestrate some sort of visual track to go with along with the music but he was like I think even maybe sign tracks because this is some fan here hurry interests is a mess and I think I’m becoming more aware of it more interested but certainly maybe sign checks done by pop bands or contemporary banned the use of non classical and rock offers not kind of thing but also there’s the phenomenon of the west and shows and stuff because she’s saying we will rock a yeah I can do something that will reward but looking into because the norm with friends doing maybe some soundtrack seems to be that rather than it being a band comes in and watches an unaccompanied version of fast on composing music yeah it’s the early on in the writing of the film and gets a concept towards hearing comes up with a song and then if %HESITATION trying gets released well before the films come out then the passenger cabin mates online which will include one of those tracks and a bunch of other ones as well so it’s this often quite messy choppy prices so that it’s not quite the same as you get a composer and and you go OK sometimes go put music on this so often it’s about because if you’re gonna use the name of the bond in marketing the best thing to do is to have something by that band specifically to do with that film ready to release well before the fed meeting us at the same explosion marketing yes I’m ready if late to pre sell the phone but also nine it’s become so common to use already existing music assign track me say so not just temp tracks anymore but said bill told them so the likes of mamma mia and sunshine on the street you using the music of a specific plans to build a whole narrative around isn’t this stage play we rocky isn’t it that like that yes not exclusively clean but it’s not rock opera thing is that we are is we can take a bunch of queens arms of a gonna have characters in a narrative where every now and then one of them has to stop and sing a song about the situation also happens to be a quick so I’m just going to work out there was a bit when I thought this music is from the future of the time when things are happening in the storage space because it was one forty but it helps me was having one of his first big lavish parties and the music off of this didn’t come up until about ten years later it was kind of touches but it was what that was sampled from most none it wasn’t and see how far it was heat sample thought you’ve got and you have a mixed up with vanilla ice MC hammer born Stanley Kirk Burrell let’s work out the timings on this coming soon okay conducts this %HESITATION you can’t touch this nineteen nineties so yeah we were getting a piece of nice Cummins okay federalist use the baseline from under pressure completely with permission as part of his made in nineteen ninety yeah I know that I was talking of a baby contestants will not and then it was it seemed to be officially it was music somebody was playing at Freddy’s party that was supposed to be happening in something like nineteen seventy nine but you know this is music from nineteen ninety but then of course I realize no one’s hearing this music at this party this is just incidental non digested music but I also so is it weird that they’re using popular music from future history space as non biogenic music not samples from the disco chart I don’t think so okay I have to look this up okay all right the some samples the permanent opening riff of the Rick James song super freak yeah that’s what I saw you’re going to tell different just do something I just do the thing okay friend what is super freak nine eight one that’s what I was trying okay so we can all right then we’ll go back and have this because I can sell it no no in the sense read the credits okay Rick I’ve mixed up to preclude the context okay sorry since nineteen eighty one might still have been in the future when I was supposed to be happening maybe that was there any any specific not long after that that that old because the party goes to Munich in numbers nineteen eighty four that’s a pretty discography data raises nineteen seventy six news of the world nineteen seventy seven jazz nineteen seventy eight the game nineteen eighty plus gold in nineteen eighty and then hot space which is the poppy one nineteen two okay it roughly fits with that this is a highly compressed gases and tiny okay will not actually move to pieces of music and that rendition of bohemian Rhapsody from stone cold classics compassion is at the very first green of my arms his greatest hits one how did that happen I want to know how it is that people get const as real life figures and also have an acting career I just checked the bios of each of the people who played the names of queen everyone of them has an acting career %HESITATION in Leicester’s one in several places because rami Malek isn’t a Gyptian prince in the night to the museum films very posh well spoken prince was over then have some career and it’s been picked as these people who they look exactly like it seems like astonishing lock %HESITATION just great head makeup and prosthetics well I would say so yeah widen somebody’s knows a bit the picture of physically lands yeah maybe yeah he looked very different but the big Brian may hair you can believe it Brian may have a million five reserves a dramatization a few years back all of the early career of the punk fans up to that point when they have that TV interview about life of Brian okay where Malcolm Muggeridge was addicted to them the six because he got to play the Parsons with total spitting images of the Balkans when they’re young I suppose it’s just a matter of you get people he really wants to play the part and then they can alter the face shape just low bat makeup of prosthetics and hat yes residual current sevens world but %HESITATION everyone’s saying wins wasn’t feeling a little bit betrayed because I thought is queen a head banging okay so this one of the tracks has about a two minute bit in it which is head banging but is anything else that they do hate that he felt slightly between the trash like green have been taken out if the needs that they have for themselves and claimed as it happened which they never will never work and this is still operatic it is mixing them but yet again wins well that was an early beginning of my awareness of Clinton and then also that same as parity and a space from coal loaded weapons I was respectively who is a member of the menu Estevez ready for you yeah and they have a party that scene from Wayne’s world the car is from the makers the naked gun yeah from China yeah I can picture the diagram right now if the relationship is a lot going on yeah there’s a lot of things that are making it because even talking about it from the movies are there there is some some research on that %HESITATION dawn of the dead in terms of thirty ten yes queen what do you think for the benefit of anyone who might actually decide whether to go and see this phone off depending upon what we say I got to a fake that anybody got some touches me tells me I haven’t seen the films that you’re talking about it so I’ll listen to the episode when I’ve seen the film because we are pretty spoilery maybe it’s different Mrs likes of a biopic but then if you didn’t know the life story of someone that is going to be spoilery at such an enjoyable film is really rising it’s everything you want like and that’s all the songs probably the economical are going to be in their candy floss the elements of it but none of it is okay now here’s another song that you like that you really want us to play for you everything is motivated the axe ready well earliest it’s from the main piece of cinema okay perhaps we’re getting an account of reality which is less interesting than an actual truthful one would have been in places where there is this big pressure on all the surviving members of queen in the making of a film like this which is that this is as critical as of Freddie’s memory as they were gonna let any film bait it does say that he’s not perfect it wasn’t easy parking and all my fellow this time but they’re quite special I think he gave the world something I can miss alive at a time when we could record him come away and say about boys but the voice is gonna last for as long as humanity can prisoners were constantly copying recordings from one medium to the neck yeah that’s fine because of the way that it’s going to last but that’s the beauty of it is well to capture that idea from recording on tape and the the lettering on the tape and the tape spring nights and then referring to all of that and that we’re not doing that anymore because the kids that attacks sure my signs and then dot texture being on the final as well when I was coming I thought so much a part of music for men I think that’s one of the reasons why me being an old person nine being a twentieth century person as that I think I get really bored with a lot of contemporaneously naive because to clean I like the Scott Tunis I like that I can hear it the media being ace and the twentieth century in this room excited about the technologies involved with those of people throwing vinyl at each other yeah this is a physical object thrown around the room and the sufferings being around yeah it’s not carrying signs on my back selecting a few files someone recording the missing a lot of tapes on reels back in full force of personal voting looking at the rewinding it so having the way it anticipation off of things that said putting candles on microphones throwing coins on the drums during the year on the job that was the thing there’s so many shots of Roger Taylor smacking drum water coming up from the phone book the film plays it was lunch the day after Houston’s Devin the sound in a second phase you Hey it’s catching the light so it is something visually exciting it’s almost explosive it’s like fireworks it’s it’s another health benefit going on was definitely part of the queen yeah that’s what I thought it was worth the drums officers contractually that’s a probably be I well after its bond sentiments anymore if you haven’t seen it on the run is over and send them back really recommend checking out or even if you don’t clean funny probably with the body and the glasses are not entirely rose tinted no they’re not from %HESITATION I think the best biopics are like in the summer the costumes
Last month I attempted to create a 
My interview with Richard Demarco 
audiovisual cultures 