Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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Mojo JANUARY 2025 - by David Sheppard

"BRIAN TOLD ME HE HATES MOST MUSIC FILMS"

Eno - Gary Hustwit's portrait of pop's uber-egghead - was a new kind of rock doc, one that was literally different every time you viewed it. David Sheppard's mind remains boggled.

How do you make a film about Brian Eno? The self-styled non-musician and mischievous disrupter-producer would seem a fertile subject for cinematic exploration. This is the man, after all, who fed Roxy Music's art-rock through pioneering electronic effects, helped Bowie, Talking Heads and U2 to think outside the box, and pioneered ambient music in the '80s and self-generating music in the '90s. But as the director of Mojo's Music Film Of The Year points out, there were some major obstacles to securing his involvement in the project. "Brian told me he hates most music films and has no interest in getting nostalgic about his work," admits Gary Hustwit.

Hooking Eno would be a matter of technological seduction. Generative Al software evolved by Hustwit and Liverpudlian digital artist/coder Brendan Dawes allowed movie scenes to sequence randomly every time the film is played and echoed Eno's own chance-based creative processes. Different every time you watch it, the film's jump-cut collision of five decades of audio-visual Eno manifestations build into a rich and revealing portrait of the irrepressible seventy-six-year-old art music magus, all without the need for a word of contextual commentary.

"The film definitely has the potential to push cinema in some new directions," Hustwit reckons, "but it works because at the centre of everything is Brian, his ceaseless creativity and his endless curiosity."

A fifty-nine-year-old Californian, Hustwit has a background in '80s alternative rock, working for hardcore label SST before moving into film, helping facilitate a tranche of music documentaries through his Plexifilm company - not least Sam Jones's 2002 Wilco portrait I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. A parallel passion for design inspired his own directorial debut, 2007's Helvetica and also 2018's Rams, a portrait of German industrial designer Dieter Rams. Eno, a fan of Rams' work, provided the soundtrack.

Raw footage from Rams reconfigured using Hustwit and Dawes' software was the bait which finally snared Eno. "I'm not sure Brian necessarily wanted the film to be about himself," Hustwit says, "but he definitely wanted to be involved in this first generative film experiment. Being the subject was the price he had to pay."

Eno ended up granting the director regular access to his studio regimen over a three-year period, as well as free rein over five hundred hours of footage in his personal archive.

"There was some amazing material, on every kind of format" Hustwit reveals, "although not everything was useable. There were hours of Brian's random video art experiments, some of which are great - we use it in the film - but there also be things like VHS tapes marked 'M.A.S.H. - last episode', which would prove to be just that until it suddenly cut to footage of Brian dancing madly in his kitchen, or a close-up of his cat."

Eno has pronounced himself pleased with the film and hopes other artists will find it inspiring. "I really don't like being 'mythic'," he told Variety. "I'd be much happier if people seeing or hearing my work thought, 'I could do that!'"

Hustwit believes that aspects of the film made Eno consider his past differently. "He definitely started thinking about the impact of certain songs from his childhood and how his artistic path has evolved. There are several unreleased pieces of music in the film's soundtrack, like the song All I Remember, which is very nostalgic, so maybe he's changed a bit."

In the immediate future, the film can only be viewed at one-off cinema and film festival screenings, but Hustwit is confident that, technical logistics notwithstanding, a domestic version will be available early next year, either via a bespoke platform or in partnership with one of the established streaming services. Meanwhile, Eno, the film, continues to shapeshift with each new screening.

"At heart, the movie still feels like a cinematic documentary, which is what I wanted," Hustwit reflects, "although we're now starting to understand the possibilities of this whole generative approach. More footage is being added even as the film is being shown around the world."

The artwork that's never truly finished? How Brian Eno is that?