Pulp Music Documentary - H 2014
Courtesy of Pistachio PicturesPulp: A Film about Life, Death and Supermarkets, Florian Habicht’s documentary about the critical darling U.K. post-punk band — called the smartest and most charismatic Britpop band of its era — is set to open theatrically in select markets Nov. 19, according to its distributor, Oscilloscope Laboratories.
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The movie captures enigmatic leader Jarvis Cocker and the group as they prepare for their farewell concert, a hometown show in their native Sheffield, England, after 25 years together.
The movie had its world premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival in Austin.
An event is being held in Los Angeles on Aug. 5 at the Theatre at Ace Hotel as a special presentation of the Don’t Knock the Rock Film and Music Festival. The evening includes a rare Q&A with Cocker and filmmaker Habicht.
A New York event will take place on Aug. 6, when it will screen as the closing night film for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s second annual music documentary series Sound + Vision, with director Habicht in attendance.
The film will then play on Aug. 7 at Rooftop Films, Brooklyn (on the roof of Industry City in Sunset Park), with Jarvis Cocker acting as judge for a post-screening Pulp karaoke contest.
Though culminating with a final concert played to thousands of adoring fans in their hometown of Sheffield in December 2012, Pulp is neither a traditional concert film nor a rock doc. As much a testament to the band as it is to the city and inhabitants of Sheffield, the film weaves exclusive concert footage with man-on-the-street interviews and staged fantasy sequences to paint a funny, moving, life-affirming overview of the band and its spawning grounds.
The band, which formed in 1978, gained prominence in the mid-1990s with a series of albums, including 1994’s His ‘n’ Hers and 1995’s Different Class, which reached the No. 1 spot in the U.K. albums chart, spawning four Top 10 singles, including “Common People” and “Sorted for E’s & Wizz.”
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Pulp’s musical style has been called a combination of “disco-influenced pop-rock coupled with ‘kitchen sink drama’-style lyrics.” They were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 1994 for His ‘n’ Hers and won the prize in 1996 for Different Class.
Oscilloscope Laboratories is the film distributorship started by the late Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch. Among its releases are the LCD Soundsystem film Shut Up and Play the Hits, Kelly Reichardt’s minimalist western Meek’s Cutoff and the Scott Walker documentary 30 Century Man.
