The two indie bands Philip Seymour Hoffman adored
Although he was one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, Philip Seymour Hoffman only ever directed one film in his lifetime. Jack Goes Boating was the dictionary definition of an indie film – produced by the now-defunct Overture Films and budgeted at a modest $5 million. With moderately positive reviews, Jack Goes Boating could have been the first step in Hoffman’s alternate career as a filmmaker all his own.
Hoffman was heavily involved in the film’s production, co-producing, starring, and directing the movie. His decisions filtered all the way down to including what the featured music would be. In an interview with Under the Radar around the film’s release in 2010, Hoffman explained how two prominent indie bands made it into the film.
“Grizzly Bear was brought to my attention by Sue Jacobs, who’s the music supervisor on the film,” Hoffman explains. “After we had spent some time together and talked a lot, and I was sharing ideas with her, she said, ‘Why don’t you listen to this band?’ And I did, and in a car ride, I must have listened to that album, their most recent album [2009’s Veckatimest], about three times or something, and I just loved it.”
“I thought it was just great, and it really spoke to me, pertaining to the film,” Hoffman added. “And so we started playing around with that album in the editing room right away before we even asked if they were all right with it. I just thought, ‘Well, if they don’t want us to use it, then we won’t, but it would be really helpful for us in editing’. And it was. And then ultimately we showed it to them, and they were cool with it, and what we were doing with it, and how we were using it.”
That wasn’t the only indie band that Hoffman was inspired by during the production of the film. Indie folk icons Fleet Foxes also filtered into the creative process. “Fleet Foxes, I actually was in a coffee shop like two years ago, and it was a song playing, and I was like, ‘Wow, what a great song. What is that?’ And I think I Shazam-ed it, and it came up with this band Fleet Foxes,” Hoffman said. “And then I downloaded the album, and it’s a great album.”
Since both ‘Oliver James’ and ‘White Winter Hymnal’ are featured in the soundtrack, it’s fair to say that Hoffman was talking about the band’s self-titled 2008 debut. “So when we were editing the film, again, I was kind of going through my musical tastes and the sounds of the movie, and the feelings of the movie, and that band kept coming to me. So I kept listening to that album thinking, ‘There’s something here.’ And there was. So that’s how those two bands came into the film.”
“There’s an energy to Fleet Foxes. Their songs are different, but there’s a certain quality to them and what they’re trying to do, and that band, in particular, I think, spoke to this film,” Hoffman added. “This one was a very small tale, and it’s about working-class people. It’s about the simple act of saying, ‘OK, I’ll be in a relationship with you.’ It’s that kind of film. But because of that, it’s operatic. The emotions that your average-day person goes through in saying, ‘I’ll be in a relationship with you,’ is an operatic moment to one’s life. “
“It actually, in my opinion, doesn’t get much bigger than that, other than starting a family with somebody,” Hoffman concluded. “Those are huge moments in people’s lives—falling in love, having a child. And so, there’s a quality to Fleet Foxes that is kind of operatic in its emotion. There are songs that they have that are really vast and full and colourful and exhilarating in their emotions—what I feel when I listen to them. And so, I think the film has that. In other words, I knew there were spots in the film where I was sensing that Fleet Foxes might work.”
Check out two of the songs featured on the Jack Goes Boating soundtrack down below.
