“Opus”: the real horror film is how music is promoted today
“Opus” is a horror film that tells Moretti’s Comeback Music (John Malkovich), bizarre and legendary pop star that nobody heard for decades anymoreat least until a video is uploaded to youtube that announces the new EP coming.
In full style “Charlie and the chocolate factory”, a very selected group of professionals receives a gift basket with bizarre articles tribute and the invitation to the mansion where the artist was holed up.
The golden ticket of musical journalism. The journey of the aforementioned party follows – a sort of 4.0 joke with.The podcaster, the influencer, the controversial presenter, the elderly prestigious signature, the former paparazzo and the imbucata – To the Municipality where the aforementioned pop star created a sect in his image and likeness.
The bad news for “Opus” is that the criticism did not particularly like it because it knows already seen and tells the sectarian part of history in a rather approximate way. The good is that it has several interesting things to say about it To today’s musical industry and the unhealthy relationship that sometimes settles between the same and its through the public: cultural journalism. So much so that if he had focused on these topics, perhaps Mark Anthony Green’s directorial debut would have left his mark.
“Opus” relies on the Register of the Grotesque to tell his pop star Moretti; An intersection between Elvis, Mariah Carey, Michal Jackson and Boy George with numerous sales and stay records in the “Billboard” ranking.
The announcement of his.musical return understanding understandably enthusiasm, perplexity and in general very ferment. Will a musician succeeded whose last round of carousel dates back to an era in which there was no internet to conquer such a different record market?
Moretti’s move is indeed very current and targeted: It is he who selects who will hear the album in previewinviting six lucky ones in its enormous properties where none not started ever set foot. The group selected by the singer is a bit The sum of a certain current journalistic scenario. Moretti in fact recalls a selection of prestigious names that have found a way to survive professionally by exasperating the tones. There is a photographer who paparazzi the stars at the time in their most embarrassing moments, there is the still pleasant journalist who leads a very pungent talk and the former prestigious signature that recycles as incendiary podcaster.
The protagonist Ariel (Ayo Edibiri) is A young journalist who dreams of making a career but is treated by the colleague All (Murray Bartlett) as a sort of assistant. He is the great signature of the pastthat everything knows of everyone, who lived under the stage the moments you have read about Wikipedia. Moments of which little or nothing knows the influencer as an enchanting appearance that does not really deal with music but It has enough followers to justify its presence. Stan would be a great journalist, in theory, if it were not that he firmly willing to write the only piece about the experience, before prestigating their prestige To the possibility of publishing an exhaustive coverage on what he left and Ariel are discovering.
That little music we hear in “Opus” is as grotesque as the film: old and new tracks by Moretti are cacophonic and ridiculously tacky in their mortally taking seriously despite being the Even too noble version of a dance disc with seductive texts.
Except that Moretti is not a singer -songwriter with political ideas so strong as to unleash a wave of hatred and violence of the generalist press against him.
His songs are a reflection of his personality Vania and the attacks for which he is mortally offended concern not very positive comments compared to his wardrobe, his musical taste and his physical appearance. Being in a horror, Moretti.brings the concept of “unwelcome question” or “silence an uncomfortable voice” to a very violent level. The presentation event of the disc is actually a clash of personality that Moretti, in a very smart way, decides to play in its territory, to its rules.
The point is not really the music itself or the sect, but this relationship in which there is no center in the center the cultural object we are talking about, but personalistic ambitions On both fronts. On the one hand there is an old pop star so accustomed to being venerated as to have founded a sect around his person, on the other a group of professionals who for previous or current fame has a praise of proselytes. Those who should tell and comment do so with the arrogance of those who are used to thinking that The point is not so much what we are talking about, but the opinion that the prestigious signature has on this regard.
In this clash of personality it is Ariel himself to postulate one of the great truths focused by “Opus”: the stars are written because they are interesting people as famous. His professional plan is to become a journalistic star in turn, a person who cares about the opinion regardless of the themebecause legitimized by the great sequel it has. She is convinced that telling an album like that of Moretti can be his opportunity, therefore he holds his notebook of notes. However, it is not particularly interested in music or character, but rather the possibility of writing a strong article to acquire fame.
In his religious pseudo fanaticism, Moretti organized this presentation to meet these expectationswhich obviously affect the waterfall on the public. Listening to the new songs of the album is quickly put in the background, while journalists are involved in bizarre “experiences”.
The one told in “Opus” is a sort of personality encounter that can only lead to the defeat, because Those who are there to tell the music is looking for a topic on which to strengthen their image. In turn, Moretti has created all this elaborate staging more to show the impact he has on the community of people who has shaped than to give his fans a new piece of his musical work.
The witness of this personalistic identity war that want to tell themselves against the background of yet another “event” (an event album) can only be Ariel, characterized precisely by the lack of personalities, of fame, below.
It is she who explains the perverse logic behind “Opus” and the desire to make an album, a single, with “an event” tours. To be worthy of attention, a new release must create.a head -on clash between diametrically opposite opinionseach of which led by one or more excellent exponents. Hence the need to consume (quickly) that something on the part of the general public, to find out which side to stay on, to establish one’s identity position.
In all this, of course, music, cinema or literature in the spotlight are never the real fulcrum of attention. Not in a society in which it is very easy that cultural consumption takes on the forms, precisely, of sectarian logic and the cult of personalities.
