Ok, earlier today we read about filmmaker Michel Gondry working on the Mia Doi Todd video for the song, “Open Your Heart,” as well as how he got away with some “crazy stuff” on the set of the Sony Pictures film, “The Green Hornet,” — obviously a studio project and one he called his “biggest ever” and occasionally filled with “pressures.” The film stars Seth Rogen and is set for release this December, but buried at the bottom of one of the EW Gondry pieces published yesterday is this little nugget.
Gondry is also planning a separate top-secret project with frequent collaborator Björk. “It’s very undefined, so it’s hard to give more precision,” he said.
Great, but what could this be exactly? They obviously have a rich history together; Gondry has directed seven of her most inventive music videos — “Declare Independence” (’07), “Bachelorette” (1997), “Jóga” (’97), “Hyper-Ballad” (’96), “Isobel,” “Army of Me” (’95) and “Human Behavior” (’95). It must be something bigger than that, no?
Björk turned down a lead part in Gondry’s 2006 picture, “The Science of Sleep” (the role went to Charlotte Gainsbourg) and that’s probably from being scarred for life while working on Lars Von Trier’s “Dancer In The Dark” in 2000. She won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes film festival that year, but the shoot was notoriously fractious with Von Trier pushing the singer to her emotional limits. She called him a misogynist at the time — “He needs a female to provide his work [with soul, and he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming, and hide the evidence” — and was so traumatized from the experience, she suddenly bailed on the picture for three days, leaving the production very much in disarray and up in the air (all of this was well documented in the short docs on the making of the “Dancer In The Dark” DVD). The experience was so punishing for her she basically disavowed acting of any kind.
Sooo… what it this undefined, top-secret project? Probably not a film? Maybe she’d do something akin to a feature for Gondry? An extended music video? Perhaps an adaptation of “The Super Mario Brothers” videogame? Your guess is as good as ours. Keep an eye out.
