Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry is not the type of artist who aims to find mass appeal with his work. His films, typically, aren’t the most approachable features in the world. But if you enjoy one of his films, odds are you’re going to enjoy everything he does. That said, it’s not terribly shocking that Perry is currently making a pseudo-doc/biopic/musical/screwball feature about the rock band, Pavement, as his next film. As weird as it sounds (and it definitely sounds strange), it sorta just… fits.
In a new profile over at The New Yorker, Alex Ross Perry pulls back the curtain about his upcoming Pavement film, and while doing so, creates a lot more questions. You see, the piece features an interview with Perry while he’s preparing for the stage debut of his new Pavement musical, titled “Slanted! Enchanted!: A Pavement Musical,” which is created to be used in parts of the upcoming feature film. Yes, you read that right. Alex Ross Perry created a full Pavement musical to be used as part of his upcoming Pavement feature film. It’s a wild idea and one that only Alex Ross Perry could dream up.
For those who don’t know, Pavement is a rock band that rose to prominence in the ‘90s. And by “prominence,” really I just mean that music critics loved them and Pavement developed a devoted cult following. But they never had any massive hits and are not a band that most people would be able to pick out in a lineup. However, when the idea of a film about the band was conceived, the band wanted to approach a screenwriter instead of a documentarian for the project.
The resulting project is described as a “screwball movie” in the article, and Perry calls it “a semiotic experiment” and “like throwing spaghetti at the wall.” In further explaining the film, Perry used some odd adjectives and a Bob Dylan analogy to try to paint a picture.
“Legitimate, ridiculous, real, fake, idiotic, cliché, illogical,” he said. “You take the Todd Haynes Bob Dylan movie, the Scorsese documentary, the [D. A. Pennebaker] documentary, and the movie Dylan himself directed that everyone hates [‘Renaldo and Clara‘] and put them all in a blender.”
The general premise for the film is the idea that Pavement, a band that never reached any sort of mass popularity, is viewed as the most important band of all time. The film is a mix of biopic, museum footage, musical numbers, tour documentary, and more.
Obviously, we don’t have a release date for the film just yet. We don’t even know if Perry and Pavement will find a distributor for the project and have some sort of festival release, which is typically what happens with the filmmaker’s work. But just from these descriptions, you better believe we’re excited to see what these folks have cooked up.
If you want to listen to a bit of Pavement, you can below, in a video that was directed by Perry: