Elvis involved with stage adaption of film 'Cold War' ?

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Elvis involved with stage adaption of film 'Cold War' ?

Post by johnfoyle »

This has come up in a few , recent interviews.

https://happymag.tv/elvis-costello-interview/

(extract)

(SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen the film)

'The Difference is a very disturbing story. I don’t know whether you know it but it’s one of three songs that I wrote, inspired by Pavel Pavlovsky’s film Cold War, I don’t know whether you know that film. It’s a Polish film. I wrote to him, I found the film very moving and his producer Tanya Seghatchian, who is also the producer of Jane Campion’s new film, she got in touch with me and, I had mentioned something about the music in Pavel’s film and we were introduced and the three of us had a conversation about a possible adaptation of his film to the stage. And perhaps I would write some music for it so, as a sort of example, not so much to begin a score that’d not been asked for, I wrote two songs which were the first and last scene of his film, in song form.'

The first one, Revolution #49 was a recitation over a very unusual, semi-improvised instrumental and the second was a ballad called I Do (Zula’s Song), it’s the name of the lead character of the story. And then I find myself writing a third song, called The Difference which quotes one of the lines in his script. Namely, as the lead characters of that movie are kind of becoming entwined in their affair, one is a music teacher and the other is a student. He asks her, she is known to have some sort of mysterious history, ‘Is it true that you killed your father?’ and she says, ‘No he lived but he mistook me for his spouse so I used a knife to show him the difference.’

'She doesn’t say whether she actually stabbed him or just threatened him. And I thought, well this could be transposed into a seduction between two people approximately the same age. What would it be like if a boy who thinks he’s more experienced is trying to seduce a young woman, only to discover that she knows much more about this scenario than he thinks? Because she has that experience of somebody actually menacing her. Because that sadly, is what some people have to live with, some secret of a traumatic experience some time in their life, which affects the way they are in every exchange.

Even if it was sincere, you know, it wasn’t in any way, it was a completely legitimate attraction on the part of that boy, he might make assumptions and there might be something that somebody has hidden. And that sort of hidden wound isn’t sung about very much in songs. Unless it’s from the perspective of somebody speaking of their own traumatic experience.

I haven’t heard of too many people trying to stand up outside that and say, ‘That’s very dramatic but who is leading who’s hand?’


https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/musi ... ged-1.4760

(extract)

Elvis Costello and Pavel Pavilowski: ‘He and his producer and I had a conversation in Paris two, maybe three years ago’
“I Do (Zulu’s Song), a track on my 2020 album Hey Clockface, and The Difference, a track on the new album, are indebted to [film director] Pavel Pavilowski. He and his producer and I had a conversation in Paris two, maybe three years ago, about a possible stage adaptation of his 2018 film, Cold War. I Do (Zulu’s Song) and The Difference were illustrations of how either a scene or even a line in his script could be a song. They weren’t songs from the score – we weren’t planning an actual score – but they are indebted to him in the sense that a line from the song alludes to a line in his script.
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis involved with stage adaption of film 'Cold War' ?

Post by johnfoyle »

December 2018 , from this

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media ... ~bd6b6bbc/

(extract)

‘Ook in Liverpool zag ik in een filmhuis Cold War. Een zwart-witfilm van de Poolse regisseur Pawel Pawlikowski die dit jaar is uitgekomen. Het gaat over een muziekgezelschap dat probeert te overleven in het communistische Polen van 1949. Het repertoire, dat voornamelijk uit volksmuziek bestaat, moet nu in het teken staan van de revolutie en Stalin. Er ontwikkelt zich een romance tussen de baas van het gezelschap en een van de zangeressen. Ik zal niet te veel van de plot verklappen, maar een van de twee vlucht naar het Westen. En wat zo knap is, de volksmuziek die je in Polen hoort ondergaat, net als het personage, een transformatie. Je hoort in een Parijse jazzclub dezelfde melodie maar dan gearrangeerd voor jazzkwintet. Fantastisch. En dan de broeierige machtsspelletjes tussen de twee hoofdfiguren.



'Vooruit, één dingetje nog om die intensiteit te illustreren. Er gaat het gerucht dat de zangeres haar vader heeft vermoord. Op een gegeven moment vraagt zij aan haar baas: ‘Ben je in mij geïnteresseerd of in mijn stem?’

‘Hij: ‘Heb je echt je vader vermoord?’

‘Zij: ‘Hij dacht dat ik mijn moeder was, dus gebruikte ik een mes om hem het verschil te laten zien.’

Costello: ‘Nou, als dat niet nieuwsgierig maakt.’

Google translation -

“I also saw Cold War in a movie house in Liverpool. A black and white film by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski released this year. It is about a music company that tries to survive in the communist Poland of 1949. The repertoire, which mainly consists of folk music, must now be dominated by the revolution and Stalin. A romance develops between the boss of the company and one of the singers. I won't give too much of the plot, but one of the two flees to the West. And what's so clever, the folk music you hear in Poland undergoes a transformation, just like the character. You hear the same melody in a Parisian jazz club, but arranged for a jazz quintet. Fantastic. And then the brooding power games between the two main characters.



'Come on, one more thing to illustrate that intensity. It is rumored that the singer killed her father. At one point she asks her boss: 'Are you interested in me or in my voice?'

"He: Did you really kill your father?"

"She: 'He thought I was my mother, so I used a knife to show him the difference.'

Costello: Well, if that doesn't make you curious.
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis involved with stage adaption of film 'Cold War' ?

Post by And No Coffee Table »

More 'Cold War' talk from 2018:

https://radiomilwaukee.org/discover-mus ... -costello/

Justin Barney: Elvis Costello, what is the last song that you couldn’t stop listening to?

Elvis Costello: You know I was trying to think of what this might be. A song that I find is very haunting to me at the moment, I don’t know the title of it. Because I saw a film a couple of weeks ago and I found myself singing this tune and I go ‘what is that tune?’

It’s from a movie I saw in Liverpool a few weeks ago and it’s a Polish film so I can’t tell you the title of the song because it’s Polish. I can’t get that tune out of my head so I guess that’s a good thing -if you hear it a couple times in a movie and then you can’t shake it, that’s got to be a great song, hasn’t it?

The movie’s called “Cold War.” That’s what it’s translated to be and I think it’s coming out in November. So that’s honestly the answer. I mean, it isn’t what I heard on the radio, it isn’t what I’ve discovered on a record, it’s one I went into the cinema to see the drama, and the song ended up sticking with me, you know?

Justin Barney: That’s really a testament to the song.

Elvis Costello: I’d say so, I’d say so. I think it was a traditional chant that was adapted into a sort of like a jazz song, and it’s so memorable.

Justin Barney: Well I’m going to try to find that song. Do you know any indication if I were to look at the tracklist, what it would be?

Elvis Costello: Well I think if you go online and you type in the words “Cold War” and “film,” you’ll see the trailer and the trailer features that song very prominently. In fact, it runs for the whole length of the trailer.

Justin Barney: Alright.

Elvis Costello: So that’s the same as kind of, hearing it on the radio isn’t it? You know I don’t know whether you can play it yet. You know, I don’t know that it’s been issued yet but, at least for your own ears you can hear this lovely song and just hear what a beautiful performance it is.

Justin Barney: Alright,I found it. The song is by Joanna Kulig from the soundtrack of “Cold War.”
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