Six musicians who would make great directors
The late, great Stanley Kubrick once said, “A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” That is a pastiche that proves so true that I believe we’ve all walked down the street one time, with headphones blaring, and directed our own movies in the playground of the imagination—usually, they don’t stretch far beyond films about someone walking down the street listening to moody music, but hey, we can’t all be David Lynch.
Nevertheless, there are certain musicians who simply seem to think in 3D. They create worlds with their music that could surely stir up some similar scintillating onscreen drama. If you can hear lyrics like David Bowie’s “It was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor,” or “Don’t think you knew you were in this song,” from ‘Five Years’ and have your thoughts not turn a touch cinematic you want to book in a check-up at the imagination clinic. Bowie was one of the folks who transitioned to film but sadly he only ever directed a pair of music videos.
Below we’re looking at the living greats of the music world who still have a chance to direct their onscreen opus. From stars like Nick Cave who can seemingly turn their hands to anything to young visionaries like Billie Eilish with the world at their feet and a lot to say, these are the musicians who we would love to see helm a feature.
Six musicians who would make great directors:
Tom Waits
Every song Tom Waits has ever written could be classed as a story—every single one of them. This is not a man who deals in platitudes or pretty words for the sake of how they sound, he always wants to convey something, and not just avant-garde faux progression either, but something that enflames the imagination.
Records like Rain Dogs are journeys through the outskirts of society, a jaunt through a fully formed town with a smorgasbord of varying imagery. ‘Underground’ takes you subterranean into a scurrying hive fit for the perusal of a film crew. And in each of these realms, he has blessed us with the embalming blanket of a vibrant atmosphere, and importantly, a real sense of fun.
Over the years, he has been an actor, short story writer, offered up tales of circus troupes and used car lots. He has been a hilarious chat show guest and has been renowned by fellow thespians as the greatest improviser and most charismatic character on any given set. If that doesn’t prime him for a pole position in the directorial world then what will?
Nick Cave
Aside from the music, Nick Cave has dabbled in photography, written novels, created a tapestry out of clay, painted, sculpted, modelled, designed, acted, soundtracked, screenplayed, curated, produced and probably catered. He is always looking for artistic development, and as the hardest-working artist around, the only thing left for him is to get behind the camera.
Having worked in the most dishevelled bands around and had the scatty Warren Ellis as a companion for decades now, he is also used to harvesting art amid the most chaotic creative spheres. What’s more, the art he hones is fully realised. Take, for instance, his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, in this gothic feast he weaves a swampy world into existence and it envelopes you entirely as you read, infected by the twisted prose that fits the fucked-up-ary like a glass slipper.
With a wealth of life experience and the wisdom to share it with others, there is no doubt that he could take the next step from writing screenplays and crafting his own sphere into existence. He’s got a lot to give in other areas, but lord knows a ‘Mercy Seat’ movie or the devil’s biography would be a force to behold.
Patti Smith
One scan of her Instagram and it is clear to see that Patti Smith has a fine handle on visuals. She is, by her own description, a renaissance woman of sorts, living an artistic life not bound to a particular field. And she does it all with an earnest reverence, as she says rather grandly in her memoir: “Men cannot judge it, for art sings of God and ultimately belongs to him.”
With that sort of pious mentality, she’s certainly not going to hand in something shoddy or create a slack mentality on set. However, I doubt she bore us with piety either—after all, she was a central figure in the vibrant world of punk, so she knows a thing or two about the importance of pointed entertainment.
In the past, she gave us a glimpse of the brooding and poignant world she might create when she directed a three-minute and 11-second short as part of the 3.11 Sense of Home documentary remembering the Japanese earthquake. Her piece titled ‘People Have the Power’ was everything you’d expect, and we’d love to witness more.
Kendrick Lamar
In the summer of 2022, Kendrick Lamar perhaps delivered the most visually stunning Glastonbury performance of all time. Resplendent with dancers, marionettes, special effects and hordes of drama, he was essentially the director of a live piece of theatre. While there may have been many other people lending a hand, but as Martin Scorsese once said, curation is a vital part of filmmaking: “More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting.” That goes for both in front and behind the camera.
Over the years, Lamar has been a master at pulling the right people into his world, whether that be rappers to share a track with, visual artists to create fitting backdrops, or fashion designers to bring his ideas to life. In essence, Lamar is the perfect director in waiting—an ideas person with a brilliant ability to communicate them to others.
That notion of making a point with emotion is central to Lamar’s work and no doubt it would serve him well in directing too, as Scorsese also said: “Music and film are inseparable. They always have been and always will be.” With a few short video outings already under his belt, the rest seems a matter of time.
Michael Gira
A vibrant life off-screen will often create a glowing one when it weaves its way into the half-fiction of film. From his juvenile incarceration to hitchhiking his way across Europe and ultimately finding himself spending over four years in Israeli prison for selling hashish, Gira’s life is already fit for a biopic but is no doubt a more experimental route he would want to venture if he ever decided to direct.
As the frontman of Swans, he is fiercely commanding. As a writer, he purveys the darkness of humanity with an unapologetic edge. If you combine these two, then you have a creative force who could whisk anybody into his fractured mindset. As he said of the film Come and See: “It’s so harrowing but I find the act of the film and the beauty of the film itself to be transcendent. The Bible is like that too, for God’s sake. I think we’ve just become accustomed to pabulum.”
That, in short, is why he would make a great director—despite the fractured tenebrosity of his art, there is a lightness that brings forth that old Leonard Cohen quote, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
Billie Eilish
At only 20 years old, Billie Eilish already has a string of director credits to her name for music videos. She was bold enough to take this step because, for her, music is a uniquely visual experience. In fact, she literally sees music as colours and shapes owing to a condition called Synesthesia.
As she once explained: “It inspires a bunch of stuff. All of my videos, for the most, part have to do with synesthesia. All of my artwork, all of my—everything I do live. All the colours for each song is because those are the colours for those songs specifically.” Thus, this is part of the reason why much of her work is minimalist. Eilish doesn’t often throw in a needless middle eight or break the musical texture of a song for the sake of something new. In her view, that would be like painting a realist seascape and suddenly making some of the waves orange.
Her understanding of tone in this way is not only essential in film visually, but also in terms of capturing the mood. She doesn’t see art as a structured realm but as an expression of emotion and atmosphere. It is why she progressively turns ASMR into music, and why she would think nothing of making a step towards directing some postmodernist masterpiece.
