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Eno is a groundbreaking, generative documentary created by Gary Hustwit about the revered music producer and visual artist Brian Eno (ten points to those who know his full name - I’ll give you a clue, it’s Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno…!)
Far from being an aristocrat with a name like that, Eno was the son, grandson and nephew of postmen, and when asked by Guardian writer Simon Hattenstone did he think of following in the family business, Eno replied, “well, I did go into communications”. He saw himself as a sonic postman, ‘help[ing] people communicate with each other in one way or another” via music.
This communication has taken on a new level in his latest collaboration with Hustwit. In Eno, the movie is never the same twice: Hustwit uses a new, custom-built software called Brain One (an anagram of Brian Eno) which is “capable of producing a new film every time it is screened in real time”. Hustwit had wanted to make a documentary about Eno for many years, but Eno’s longstanding dislike of documentaries meant Hustwit had to (quite literally) think outside the box. Eno said:
“I didn’t fancy the linearity of conventional biographies…Lives don’t run in straight lines, and every time we think about them in retrospect (i.e., every time we start remembering) we actually rethink them. Our lives are stories we write and rewrite. There is no single reliable narrative of a life.”
The digital artist Brendan Dawes said:
“this film that you will watch tonight doesn’t exist outside that moment… you have to be there to experience it and once it’s over, it’s gone forever.”
Due to Eno’s extensive career, there are over 30 hours of interviews and 500 hours of film from his personal archive - thus there are 52 quintillion possible versions of the movie. Rob Tannenbaum points out that “a quintillion is a billion billion”.
The unpredictable nature of the movie means you might not get to see the version of the film you want to see, and it’s like to going to see your favourite artist live - you hope they’ll play your favourite songs but the set list might change last minute. Hutwist himself said:
“I wanted the film to be more like live music where even if you’re playing the same song every night, you can change it”.
It’s been amazing to read reviews where journalists mention parts of the film that I didn’t see at my showing (one reviewer talks about how
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