The Otherwise
Page 12
MARK and PETER get into the car. The car
doors slam.
Ed's car pulls away. As it does so, we see MARK glance back at the studio, his face framed in the passenger window.
FREEZE FRAME.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT – HILL – DAY
MACFISK looks down at Clare's farmhouse from
a distance.
MACFISK's POV: He surveys the landscape. He sees Ed's car wind its way down the road. Then JEFF and BEV approaching on a motorbike. The two vehicles pass each other.
MACFISK turns and continues to walk up the hill.
We linger on his departing figure, disappearing into the landscape.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. – YARD – DAY
JEFF drives the motorbike into the YARD with BEV riding on the back. They dismount.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. – STUDIO CONTROL ROOM – DAY
JIB SHOT: We are looking down into the studio. CLARE is slumped over the mixing desk. Enter JEFF followed by BEV.
TIGHT SHOT ON JEFF and BEV. They come to a halt, nervous about going forward, uncertain if she's alive or dead.
BEV
Clare?
To their relief, CLARE sits up. She turns around and smiles at them.
JEFF and BEV smile back in relief.
CLARE's smile goes on too long. Her eyes are glassy and dark. Her mind has gone. She lifts her hand up to her mouth. It is covered in the strange yellow/grey mucus-like growth. CLARE's empty smile widens, then she begins to gnaw on the strange growth on her hand.
CUT TO BLACK:
GRAMS: ‘HOT CAKE’ BY THE FALL (00.00)
END CREDITS.
© Mark E. Smith/Graham Duff 2015.
THE INEXPLICABLE
1 & 2
The Original TV Pitches
THE INEXPLICABLE
A Supernatural Anthology Series for TV
Written by
MARK E. SMITH & GRAHAM DUFF
6x30 minutes
INEXPLICABLE is a series of macabre, humorous and gripping stories of modern day hauntings, premonitions and possession set in and around the North West of England.
Each week the lead role is played by a different guest star. (Casting ideas include Craig Cash, Jane Horrocks and Mark Gatiss).
Bringing a perverse sense of humour to the classic tradition of shows such as ‘The Twilight Zone’, the BBC's M.R. James adaptations and Nigel Kneale's ‘Beasts’, INEXPLICABLE serves up a unique blend of comic terror…
‘IT’S A BETTER LIFE HERE’
Jim and Sue are a pair of aging scallies determined to turn their backs on their old life of petty crime. They move out of Moss Side, away from all the violence, the drugs and the gangsters and relocate to the quiet, picturesque Pendle village of Marswell. Initially, it seems like the perfect place for the couple to start their life afresh. However, Jim and Sue quickly find themselves hankering for their old city life as they fall foul of vicious foxes, a mentally unbalanced single mum and a neighbour who runs his own satanic neo-fascist group.
‘THE KALLENS’
In a dilapidated Prestwich mental ward, Mr Grant, an aging delusional paranoiac, watches a TV news report as a certain Leith Kallen is made Prime Minister. The news is seemingly enough to send Grant into a fit. As a Staff Nurse struggles to restrain him, we flash back through Grant's life in five yearly intervals, the story unfolding in reverse. All through his life Grant has repeatedly encountered the self serving and sinister Kallen. And each time Kallen has loomed up, he has been the harbinger of chaos. But surely you can't be haunted by someone who isn't dead? Only when we finally flash back to Grant and Kallen's first ever meeting do we understand the terrible truth.
‘VACANT POSSESSION’
The Breakspeare is a huge 18th century edifice in the heart of Manchester. Originally it was a massive sweatshop, with adults and children kept in inhuman conditions, toiling endlessly for a pittance. Today however, it's just another building converted into luxury apartments for wealthy professionals – like Susan and Marsha; a lesbian couple in the process of setting up a designer furniture store – who adore the Breakspeare's old world charm. But the ghosts of the Industrial Revolution are about to rise up and turn Susan and Marsha's life into a living hell.
‘NO ORDINARY ANGEL’
Jeff Maxwell is a weak-willed simpleton, bullied into joining the local chapter of the Hells Angels by his Neanderthal elder brother Mick. Forever the butt of the gang's taunts and nasty practical jokes, Jeff retreats into a Walter Mitty style dream world. In his fantasies, Jeff is a charismatic biker, pulling gorgeous chicks and effortlessly beating his enemies to a pulp, as his own warped Russ Meyer style voice-over narrates his exploits. But when Jeff survives a near fatal crash, he finds fantasy and reality begin to merge, as his ‘narrator’ starts telling him to kill and kill again.
‘THE DEATH OF STANDARDS’
On his way to work, a council health and safety official deliberately knocks over a pedestrian and drives on. Bizarrely, upon arriving at his office he launches into a heartfelt tirade against hit and run drivers. Meanwhile, the department's team leader instigates a series of compulsory redundancies then appears on a local TV news programme to protest against the sackings in the strongest possible terms. Strangely, Jenny Carver – working as a temp in the office – seems to be the only one aware of her colleagues’ paradoxical behaviour. Finding herself trapped in a world where everybody really is their own worst enemy, she begins to suspect there may be some kind of supernatural intelligence at work.
‘TAPE LOOP’
Des is the ever optimistic owner of The Loop – a tiny, grotty recording studio in Cheetham Hill. The place is so damp and out-dated, nobody's used it for years. Yet, when an old novelty single which was recorded there is re-released it becomes a surprise number one hit. Suddenly Des is besieged by bands wanting to book the studio in order to get “that Loop sound”. And that's just what they get – no matter what is recorded there, it ends up sounding like the irritating novelty single. Whilst Des is initially amused, he begins to realise that the very fabric of the studio is impregnated with a malignant viral madness…
© Mark E. Smith & Graham Duff 2007
THE INEXPLICABLE
A Supernatural Anthology Series for TV
Written by
GRAHAM DUFF & MARK E. SMITH
6x30 minutes
Jeff Sherwin is a hapless Lancashire electrician whose life is going nowhere. Weak willed and disillusioned with his lot, Jeff frequently retreats into his various fantasy worlds.
However, what the dozy Jeff continually fails to comprehend, is that his real life is already plagued by the fantastical. As he daydreams his way through the day, Jeff is oblivious of the fact he's an absolute magnet for the uncanny, the paranormal and the downright frightening.
Having recently split up with his girlfriend, Jeff is temporarily lodging with his sister Claire and her husband Len – an obnoxious oaf and leader of a small Hells Angels style biker gang by the name of Satan's Stooges. Meanwhile, the long suffering Claire runs a shabby, out-moded recording studio with a dark secret.
Jeff dutifully pays weekly visits to his dad – a delusional paranoiac, confined to a Prestwich mental home. He is morbidly obsessed by a certain Mr Kallen, a former acquaintance and TV pundit who is, according to Jeff's dad, “secretly controlling everything”. Jeff dismisses this as nonsense. But should he?
A winning mix of biting character comedy, bizarre and inventive plots and genuinely chilling set pieces, INEXPLICABLE is a unique show which provides the missing link between The Twilight Zone and Billy Liar.
Ep.1 – ‘VACANT POSSESSION’
Jeff is doing some rewiring at The Breakspeare – a huge 18th century edifice in the heart of Manchester. Originally a sweatshop – with adults and children toiling in inhuman conditions for a pittance – today it's been converted into luxury apartments for wealthy professionals. Jeff is working in the flat of Susan a
nd Ella; a lesbian couple who run a designer furniture store. He fantasises about living in a menage a trois with the two women, blissfully unaware that the ghosts of the Industrial Revolution are about to rise up and turn life into a living hell…
Ep.2 – ‘THE JUDGES’
Jeff becomes convinced that – unlike the shambolic bands he sees Claire working with at the recording studio – he has real potential as a singer. So, when TV talent show ‘Star Catcher’ holds auditions in town, Jeff just has to give it a go. However, once in front of the judges it becomes apparent he's completely lacking in confidence and charisma and can barely hold a tune. Yet strangely, the judges – three oddly wizened individuals – choose Jeff to go through to the next round. What Jeff doesn't suspect, is that the judges are vampiric beings who sustain themselves by feeding on the energy and enthusiasm of the wannabes…
Ep.3 – ‘TAPE LOOP’
Jeff does some work for his sister Claire at ‘The Loop’, her grotty and out-moded recording studio. As usual, business is slow, so Jeff has plenty of time to daydream about being a big shot producer. However, when a novelty single recorded at the studio shoots to number one, Claire receives a flood of calls from people who want “that Loop sound”. And that's exactly what they get. Because no matter how many times Claire replaces the tapes or Jeff rechecks the equipment, it seems that every piece of music they record ends up sounding like the irritating novelty single. It's enough to drive someone mad…
Ep.4 – ‘THE DEATH OF STANDARDS’
Jeff is doing some electrical work at the council health and safety office and fantasising about running the council. Meanwhile, one of the council officials is driving to work when she deliberately knocks over a pedestrian and drives on. Bizarrely, upon arriving at the office, she launches into a heartfelt tirade against hit and run drivers. That same day, the department's team leader makes a series of compulsory redundancies then appears on the local news protesting against the sackings in the strongest possible terms. Although Jeff doesn't realise it, this is a world where everybody really is their own worst enemy. And it seems some kind of supernatural intelligence is at work…
Ep.5 – ‘NO ORDINARY ANGEL’
Against his better judgement, Jeff allows brother-in-law Len to bully him into joining Satan's Stooges. Inevitably, Jeff becomes the butt of the gang's taunts and nasty practical jokes. Retreating into his dream world, Jeff imagines himself to be a charismatic biker. In his fantasies, we see Jeff pulling gorgeous chicks and effortlessly beating up his enemies, as a warped Russ Meyer style voice-over narrates his exploits. However, when Jeff survives a near fatal crash without a scratch, he finds fantasy and reality begin to merge, as his ‘narrator’ starts telling him to kill and kill again…
Ep.6 – ‘IT’S A BETTER LIFE HERE’
Determined to make a fresh start, Jeff moves out of the city and away from the bikers and the violence. Relocating to a cottage in the picturesque, leafy Pendle village of Marswell, Jeff fantasises about cultivating a huge ornate garden. Back in the real world, Jeff is kindling a romance with Beth – an attractive single mum who lives next door. What he fails to grasp, is Beth is the priestess of a local satanic neo-fascist coven. And there's also the problem of the ancient standing stone which refuses to stay in one place…
© Graham Duff & Mark E. Smith 2010
REAL,
ASSUMED
OR IMAGINARY
It has been remarked by numerous observers on numerous occasions, that in a different life Mark E. Smith would have made a superb short story writer. This assertion is easily borne out by even a cursory perusal of his lyrics. He was an inventive and idiosyncratic writer, and when it came to narratives, a supremely economic storyteller.
The symbolist poet Paul Verlaine is reputed to have said, “The surest way to be a bore, is to tell the whole story”. As a lyricist Mark understood this notion implicitly. He knew how to edit an idea down to its essential elements.
Importantly, he was also an experimentalist. Even his most narratively cohesive texts are still prone to abstraction. There is a genuine feel of collage in much of his work. But he didn't arrive at this via an act of physical collage, or by the application of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs's cut-up or fold-in techniques. Rather Mark would engage in multiple trains of thought. As he wrote in the sleeve notes for the album Perverted by Language: ‘Smith applied cut-up technique literally to brain’.
He also stated on more than one occasion that he used something he referred to as ‘clang process’. This apparently involved creating an association of ideas by speaking sentences thick with assonance, homophones or near homophones – we can hear examples of this in titles such as ‘Antidotes+Anecdotes’, ‘Gibbus Gibson’ and Pander! Panda! Panzer! In reality of course, we actually know very little about how he composed his texts. Because, as Mark often remarked, he didn't like to give away his secrets.
Over the following pages, I've chosen to focus on 25 sets of Mark's lyrics – five from each decade of The Fall's existence. I believe each of them, in their different ways, serves to illustrate Mark's skills as a storyteller. There are horror stories, tales of time travel, natural disaster, uprising, possession, mind transference and a lurid assembly of hideous supernatural beings.
Obviously I'm not for a moment suggesting that reading Mark's lyrics as short stories is the correct way, or even the best way to experience them. What is undeniable however, is that so many of them certainly can be enjoyed as narrative. But let's be clear, the majority of the texts cited here – with a few exceptions such as ‘The N.W.R.A.’ – were created as lyrics to be sung within a rock and roll song. A form driven by primal energies and beats, a form where the ‘Hey!’s and the ‘Ba-ba-bah!’s are often far more crucial than any amount of smart wordsmithery.
Mark was equally capable of creating anti-narrative. His fascination with the texts of the vorticist artist Wyndham Lewis undoubtedly played a part in his creation of lyrics that operated as a series of declarations. Lewis's literary magazine Blast ran for just two issues between 1914 and 1915 and his bold typographic arrangements of terse, splenetic texts seem to shout off of the page. It's impossible to see lines by Lewis such as ‘Curse with Expletive of Whirlwind, the Britannic Aesthete’ and not be reminded of Mark's own elliptical pronouncements.
Although he usually took a remarkable amount of care with his lyrics, the odd phrase aside, he never wanted them printed on The Fall's album sleeves. He strongly believed the words shouldn't be divorced from the music. However, a description that comes up again and again, whenever The Fall's lyrics are under discussion, is ‘cryptic’. And when an artist produces cryptic work, it naturally follows that a portion of the audience will feel compelled to decrypt. Yet Mark wanted it both ways. He wanted the freedom to create texts liberally threaded with references to ideas, films, music and literature: from classic to esoteric, from popular to pulp. But he also actively discouraged the unpicking of any of those threads.
Like Allen Ginsberg, with his claim of “first thought, best thought”, Mark had an obsession with immediacy. He never wanted to do exactly the same thing twice. He preferred to get something down and move on. Not because he wasn't deeply invested in the idea. He was. But he was even more deeply invested in the next idea. Mark wasn't interested in hanging around to polish or pick over what he'd just done. So he couldn't really understand why anyone else would want to.
In Mick Middles's insightful and extremely readable book The Fall published in 2003, Mark told the author, “There's some fucking professor in America who teaches about the meaning of Fall songs. I mean, can you believe that? The whole point is to understand and move on. Not hold seminars or open fucking web pages.”
But of course the instant an artist puts a piece of work out in the world is also the exact moment they lose control of how it is perceived. And perceptions of The Fall's work are polarized. Some dismiss the group as an ugly, barely intelligible mess. Whilst for others, The Fall demand the same kind of inv
estigation, research and respect accorded to the work of James Joyce or Stanley Kubrick.
Although Mark was keen to project an image of disdain towards ‘scholars’ of his lyrics, and resolutely refused to provide any assistance in the ‘decoding’ of his work, I believe he was secretly proud that his lyrics were the subject of such debate and confusion.
His texts are especially fascinating for their inclusion of other fictional worlds, such as those created by H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Marvel comics and so on. Once you begin to scratch away at Mark's lyrics, you are quickly drawn into an expansive web of references, allusions, quotes, influences and connections.
‘A literature defined by unreliable narration, impossible plots, fragmentation, paranoia, inclusion of other fictions, authorial self reference and the erasure of the distinction between high and low culture.’
A description of Mark's writings? No: a definition of Postmodernist literature. Whilst Mark would have surely deplored the observation, it cannot be denied that his lyrics display all the hallmarks of the Postmodern. However, it seems entirely possible that this is something he arrived at via his own instinctive feel for how he wanted to assemble information and communicate it to others.
Mark frequently pointed out that he often wrote from the viewpoint of a character, rather than as himself. Perversely, he would then sometimes insert himself, or altered versions of his persona, into the narratives, alongside friends and other elements from his personal life. At times he would use verbatim texts he'd encountered, be they lines from films, books, magazine articles, advertising copy, other people's songs or his own songs. This innate sense of collage is at the very heart of so much of Mark's best work.