Untitled Document

Mad World, Donnie Darko and Me

November 2002 was a bit of a weird time for me!

My web site had effectively been switched off due to self doubt of my writing ability and my depression was at an all time high.

I also had to tackle some personal problems that caused the depression so I turned to Script writing as a form of therapy or "Script Therapy" as I called it in which I fictionalized to an extent what I was going through and how I was feeling.

The plan was for it to be a 70 page screenplay that I would circulate to my friends to let them know how I was feeling and why I wasn't my semi-normal self.

As I began writing I placed a copy of a free CD that received with UK Magazine Total Film in the CD Player and forwarded it to Where is my Mind by the Pixies from the excellent Fight Club. As I did I chose the wrong track and heard the first few bars of a haunting track by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules called Mad World.

As I listened I was blown away with the lyrics and simpleness of the song. I grabbed the CD and looked at the details, I had to know where this had came from and discovered it was Donnie Darko.

Who is Donnie Darko or should I say what is Donnie Darko I thought and after reading up I discovered it was on limited release and looked like the sort of film that I could go for. Needless to say that due to a limited release I was not able to see it on a big screen which really annoyed me as I love to see movies on the BIG screen.

Luckily my Birthday was around the corner and a friend bought me it on import and I was blown away, but I'm ahead of myself.

I spent the next month writing Shoulder the Sky while listening to Mad World on loop when things got tricky and I was dealing with the darker side of the screenplay. There was many a night in which I took two shots of Sambuca and an hour of Mad World to complete a few pages.

It was my first script and things were not going as smooth as I would have liked (It took 5 months to complete the exploratory draft and I'm still on the first draft) but any time things got rough I had Mad World to put me in the frame of mind that I needed to be in.

In December after a hard day at work Donnie Darko arrived and I put it on, despite being tired beyond belief I watched it and was captivated by the story, the characters, structure and the use of music.

When Tears for Fears Head over Heels plays and we have what seemingly flows as one shot and we are introduced to all of the central characters (I had to watch it twice due to how clever it was), Duran Duran's Notorious as Jim Dunningham watches Sparkle Motion and Donnie burns his house down to Mad World where we see the repercussions of the events Donnie has created in the parallel universe.

Donnie Darko renewed my interest in getting shoulder the sky complete and helped me write it. It opened my mind again to the possibility of Independent cinema in the same way that Clerks and El Mariachi had when I watched them in 1997.

Months past and I completed Shoulder the Sky in March 2003 at over 120 pages and I was still listening to Mad World and watching Donnie Darko when I struggled.

I was lucky enough to eventually see Donnie Darko on the Big Screen thanks to two of my local cinemas showing them. One in February as part of a Cult Film season and another in November as part of a classic film season.

By November 2003 with the release of Donnie Darko on DVD in the UK Donnie had established itself as a cult film that was a must se for anyone interested in real groundbreaking cinema and Mad world had garnered Radio airplay.

In December Mad World was given a release the week before Christmas meaning that it was going up against the likes of The Darkness, Pop Idols and Ozzy/Kelly Osbourne for the coveted Christmas No1 spot. A seemingly impossible task so I thought considering the history of the song and the fact that it's not exactly a Christmas track.

Lyrics like "Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow" are hardly the staple of Christmas when going up against The Darkness (the main contender) "Christmas time, Don't let the Bells end".

The cover was hardly a Christmas cover with a series of images of Frank's Bunny Mask on the cover and Frank's bunny suit on the inlay.

Me being the Donnie Darko fan that I am had to buy two copies of the single on both format (one to listen to and one for my Movie collection).

Now here's where it gets interesting as according to the Press the Darkness out sold Donnie Darko every day of the week except the Saturday (last day of trading when calculating the chart) where there was a mad rush for Mad World, which I can vouch for as it was near impossible to get my second complete set.

When the No.1 was announced on the Sunday I just laughed thinking of all of the people who will go out and buy or rent Donnie Darko on the basis of Mad World and just not 'get' the film.

Mad World reaching No.1 proves in my opinion two things:
1. People aren't wising up to all of the prefabricated pop junk (Pop Idol) thrown out every year.

2. If presented right and the track is strong enough then it can help the sales of an Independent or Art House movie like Donnie Darko. I now wonder how much more successful Clerks would have been had they released the excellent Can't even tell by Soul Asylum as a single prior to the release of the movie.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't put a complaint in here somewhere and I have two:

First the fact that Music Television (all of them not just the MTV stations) rarely played the music video was a bit annoying considering they were playing The Darkness and Pop Idol in continuous rotation.

Second, there is most excellent music video on the Donnie Darko (region 1) DVD that is infinitely superior to that of the new music video.

I will admit that the second video is more general audience friendly, but the first Donnie Darko one is just so cool the way it mixes Gary Jules in with clips from the movie.

In the end I suppose it is a bit of a mad world that a film that grosses more money on limited UK release than US release becomes a cult film in Britain first and that a song that was available as freebie on a magazine CD gets to number one just over a year later, but hey I'm not complaining.

I'm just glad that movie and song that have been such an inspiration have now been given the chance to shine.