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#SUFJAN STEVENS AM I GAY FOR GOD MOVIE#
“For most title songs, as you know, basically you make the movie and you kind of just attach someone at the end of it, and they’re not really part of the team all the way through,” says “Promise” producer Eric Esrailian. “You put me in an embarrassing situation, because I really love them both.” Should Stevens’ fans and “Call Me” lovers in the Academy coalesce around just one, so as not to split the vote? “I don’t know!” protests Guadagnino. In this case - unlike some other films with multiple original song possibilities, like “Coco” or “Greatest Showman” - the studio submitted both. That idea of a memory as something that can fade, or that can feel like it never happened but was just enacted, is so powerful.”Īs powerful as that is - what about the other song, “Mystery of Love,” which plays through mid-film, and is more wistful, less shattering? That’s the one most Oscar bloggers have latched onto as the contender. “This question that repeats itself – ‘Is it a video?’ –it’s such a powerful thing when it comes to this moment, for its intellectual bravery and evocativeness and obliqueness. “Visions of Gideon” plays over one of the most memorable end-credits scenes in memory, a live-action single shot that’s as powerful as anything that occurs before the credits roll. “We asked him to rearrange it,” says the director, “and he gave us a beautiful liquid piano that plays very well and organically with the general piano-driven classical pieces of music we chose for the film.” But if you empower somebody, I think you end up having something as great as we got.”īesides the two fresh songs, Stevens also delivered on Guadagnino’s request for a remix of “Futile Devices,” a song that has been interpreted as possibly describing a gay relationship, which fit the movie’s subject matter, even if only subliminally, since the new version is an instrumental. If you overbake something, if you overanalyze things, if you micromanage an artist, then you are going to have something that may disappoint you. I may have said that I was making a movie that was very straightforward and simple in its approach. I may have said to Sufjan that I wanted to make an idyll. “He had the book, he had the script, and we had three or four conversations about the characters and the kind of movie I was doing. He left Stevens to his own devices, without much input about which sections of the coming-of-age drama to illustrate. That went even further toward Guadagnino’s hope to “envelop the movie and its emotional fabric in Sufjan’s world,” which has always tended to mix the melancholic with a sense of wonder - ideal for a coming-of-age love story that goes the way of most such romances. “It was a dream come true,” says director Luca Guadagnino about working with indie-rock hero Stevens, of whom he’d long been a “big fan.” It wasn’t initially easy even getting to Stevens for the ask - “The approach took a long time,” the filmmaker admits - but once he did, he got more than he bargained for, with the singer delivering two original songs. “Mystery of Love” and “Visions of Gideon” A closer look at three of the frontrunners: This week, he released a non-album B-side written in the same period: "My Rajneesh," which clocks in at a comparatively modest 10 minutes and 30 seconds, and fuels the age-old " is this Sufjan Stevens song gay or just about God?" debate with lyrics like "I lit a fire and drank in the breath of his kiss.The rock world is seemingly fielding ever more contenders in the Oscars’ Best Original Song category, with artists including Sufjan Stevens, Elvis Costello, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, Sara Bareilles, and the late Chris Cornell all performing end-title themes they wrote or co-authored. Last week, Sufjan announced his followup to Carrie & Lowell-a 15-track LP called The Ascension with song titles like "Ativan" and "Death Star," out September 25-and dropped " America," the 12-minute first single that he wrote during the Carrie & Lowell sessions. He name-checks the Tillamook Burn on " Fourth of July," Spencer Butte on " All of Me Wants All of You," The Dalles on " No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross," and there's a standout track called " Eugene" where he recalls early Oregon summers with his mom and stepdad.
#SUFJAN STEVENS AM I GAY FOR GOD FULL#
Still, his last full length, 2015's legendarily sad Carrie & Lowell, could easily count as his Oregon album. Sufjan Stevens abandoned his much-discussed states project (one album per state, 50 in all) a long time ago he probably never meant to finish it in the first place.