Thinking about Pink Floyd the Marillion made a movie

In 1994 i Marillion their seventh album, a concept entitled “Brave”. A disc that was inspired by the British group Frontmandel Group Steve Hogarth From a story listened to on the radio that concerned a girl found in a confusion by the police on the Severn Bridge, the bridge that connects England to Wales.

The album was born among many difficulties. The group was disagreed with the record label and even the relationships between the various members of the band were not the most peaceful. In addition to all this to Marillion The one who, in stops stopped, seemed to be an excellent idea: to support the album a film with the same title,

“Brave”from which the videos of “The GreatEscape “, “Hollow man” And “Alone Again in the lap of luxury”. It was a failure. The final result was so disappointing that the director himself, Richard Stanley, He dissociated.

In 2018 the band spoke of how it went that time with prog. The keyboard player Mark Kelly He said: “We had made three videos for the singles of” Holidays in Eden “(the previous album of the Marillion of 1991, editor’s note), costing 30 or 40,000 pounds each. We thought: ‘Why don’t we take that money and we make a movie?’ We had a story that we thought was interesting to tell.

With about 120,000 pounds, “not many”, he admitted Kelly, the band looked around to find the suitable director to direct the film. In the end they chose to entrust the project to the South African director
Richard Stanley
who had directed videos for artists such as i
Public Image Ltd

. But i
Marillion
Two films were conquered by the vision: the science fiction feature film
‘Hardware’
of 1990 and horror
‘Dust Devil’
of 1992.

Kelly described the director as a little strange, while the bass player
Pete Trewavas
He said that “he had a dark vein that adapted to the theme of” Brave “”. During the filming, the band sets in the sidelines. Trewavas underlined: “He had a plan in the lead and we knew only some details, others not. I think he would tell us what we thought we need to know to complete the job. To tell the truth, it was rather similar to how we at the time treated the record company”.

The actress
Josie Ayers
he played the role of the protagonist girl, while i
Marillion
they played themselves. Unfortunately, the group’s plan to use the film as a promotional tool for the album failed as it was blocked by the censorship of the British Board of Film Ranking, as it was structured by telling the story of the girl for Flashback as part of a psychiatric session. “At the time there was a lot of talk about the influence of the films on children, and since it was a music video, they were particularly severe,” he said

Mark Kelly
. “They did not even intend to give him a certificate, they simply wanted to trash him and not to allow us to publish it. In the end, they removed several scenes”.

Today the band has contrasting feelings about it. “Many scenes work really well, and there are very interesting and disturbing images,” says the guitarist
Steve Rothery
. “But in the end he would never have had full cinema appeal for that budget.” “It wasn’t a great movie, to tell the truth,” adds Kelly. “I’m not blaming Richard Stanley, because the budget available was tiny. That film could have worked very well with him. He simply didn’t work.”