Production Details

[vardathemessage]

script:
‘Satellite of Love’/Lou Reed begins:

EXT. CARNIVAL – SET – DUSK – 1973
 
Curt and Brian ride in neighboring rockets on the Space Spinner ride, reeling over the candy-colored lights of a traveling carnival. TRACK-IN as Curt lip-syncs to the song and Brian sings the backing arpeggios, his rocket passing Curt’s.
Behind them, the lights of the carnival recede. They are flying away.

In Shooting to Kill, Christine Vachon tells how she enjoyed seeing this 'very buoyant and freeform' scene come together. The problem was that they shot the scene before the song was cleared and the rights to use it might have been as much as $50,000. It's similar to the film Poison when Todd used ideas and quotes from the work of Jean Genet before getting clearance from Genet's estate. Luckily for us they were granted the rights in both cases.

Esoteric trivia: the cars of Curt and Brian's fairground ride are named SupaJet and High Flyer.

Comments

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

She is deservedly so - I could probably use her icon for most of the entries. I keep being amazed at how she managed to get the film finished despite so many obstacles.

And I agree with you on this scene. It's such a sweet interlude that actually captures that feeling of falling in love.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

I always loved that this song is also the only moment in the film that Bowie's voice sneaks through, in the backing vocals ;-)

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks for mentioning that! Despite the hundreds of Bowie references it's a bit of of the real thing.

[handrejka.livejournal.com]

Unlike Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story where they never got the rights.

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's true. But perhaps that movie works best as a cult film, it's almost more famous for that reason. I can't imagine Richard Carpenter actually granting Todd the rights, in any case.

*sigh*

[velvetspur.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that scene without the song! Yay Christine!

And all that swooping around on the dodgem cars is so exhilarating and yet sad (even the first time I saw it and didn't know what was coming). Whooshing past each other, Curt keeps trying to catch Bri's eye, at one point seeming to lift himself out of the car towards him, and Brian is absorbed in the experience, but in a world all his own.

Re: *sigh*

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Oh very good point! It does seem as if Curt is far more smitten than Brian. After all, he had no calculation in any of it. Brian sort of fell out of thin air to be his lover whereas Curt was a planned acquisition.