Acclaimed Irish director Lenny Abrahamson follows up his award-winning films Adam & Paul, Garage, and What Richard Did with an offbeat comedy about a young wannabe musician, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who finds himself out of his depth when he joins an avant-garde pop band led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank (Michael Fassbender), a musical genius who hides himself inside a large fake head, and his terrifying bandmate Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Written by Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats) and Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Men Who Stare At Goats), FRANK is based on the memoir by Jon Ronson. It is a fictional story loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom, the persona of cult musician and comedy legend Chris Sievey, as well as other outsider musicians like Daniel Johnston and Captain Beefheart.
About the Film
In the world of alternative music, The Soronprfbs are the ne plus ultra of outsiders. A brilliant, ramshackle, barely functioning band, they are built around the eponymous Frank (Michael Fassbender), an unstable yet charismatic musical savant, who at all times wears a large, round fake head with crudely painted-on features – like Daniel Johnston hidden behind a cartoon smile. His closest musical collaborator is the forbidding Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal); part caretaker, part jailer, Clara is the antithesis of all things mainstream. The band is completed by Nana (Carla Azar), a Moe Tucker-like drummer, and Baraque (Francois Civil), a beautiful Frenchman who plays bass.
Into this mix comes replacement keyboard player, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), after the band’s original keyboardist is hospitalized following an attempt at drowning himself. In his head, Jon’s is a true creative, a maverick musical force; in reality he’s a very ordinary young man trying to escape his hum-drum, small-town life. For Jon, this is the break he’s been waiting for, his chance to climb through the looking glass and into the world of artistic collaboration, real music-making, and rock ‘n’ roll adventure that he’s always dreamed of. But he discovers (and perhaps has always suspected) that he lacks the one thing he needs to make his dream come true – genuine talent.
Desperate to belong, but hopelessly out of his depth, Jon becomes more and more infatuated with the enigmatic and talented Frank: if only he could understand him, what makes him tick, how he goes to those furthest, creative corners; if only he could ‘get inside that head inside that head’.
From a lakeside cabin, where the band spend 18 months – and all of Jon’s savings – recording their new album, to the stages of South by Southwest after the band becomes a viral internet sensation, FRANK tells the story of Jon’s struggle with Clara for control of Frank, his rise to power within the band, and how, ultimately, he comes close to destroying the thing he’s come to love.
About the Production
Acclaimed Irish director Lenny Abrahamson follows up his award-winning films Adam & Paul, Garage, and What Richard Did with an offbeat comedy about a young wannabe musician, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who discovers he’s bitten off more than he can chew when he joins an eccentric pop band led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank (Michael Fassbender). Frank is a musical genius who hides himself inside a large fake head, and is always accompanied by his closest collaborator and fellow bandmate, the terrifying Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Written by Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats) and Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Men Who Stare At Goats), FRANK is a fictional story loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom, the persona of cult musician and comedy legend Chris Sievey, as well as other outsider musicians like Daniel Johnston and Captain Beefheart. The idea sprung from a memoir by Ronson, who was himself the keyboard player in Sidebottom’s band.
Ronson teamed up with his The Men Who Stare At Goats co-writer Peter Straughan and wrote a screenplay about an aspiring musician who gets caught up in the world of an oddball band fronted by an unconventional genius who hides behind an enormous fiberglass head.
The project was brought to Tessa Ross and Katherine Butler at Film4 by producers David Barron and Stevie Lee. They then brought on board director Lenny Abrahamson and his long-time producer Ed Guiney. Abrahamson worked closely with Ronson and Straughan, developing and honing the script.
Abrahamson has a track record in films about oddball characters who have the uncanny ability to engage audiences, so it was no surprise that he would be drawn to the character of Frank. But he was also very taken by the Jon character, through whose eyes the story is told.
“We laugh at Jon because he clings to an idea of himself which is so ridiculously at odds with the person we see in front of us,” says Abrahamson. “But we also recognize ourselves in him; wanting to have, maybe kidding ourselves we really do have, capacities and talents we deep down know we lack. Most of us are smart enough to avoid situations where we might have to put our fantasies to the test, but the film takes Jon on a journey where he has to do just that.”
“It’s a hard film to categorize,” continues the director. “It’s very playful in tone and has some sequences of out and out, broad slapstick. But it has subtle, darker, more moving aspects as well. Frank is both a real, complex person and a kind of cartoon character. The head, with its fixed expression becomes a sort of blank canvas on which Jon can project his clichéd ideas of what creativity is all about. Jon, himself starts as the butt of the joke but evolves into something much more than that. So tonally the film is pretty rich – funny, tender, broad in parts, quiet and moving in others.”
Producer Ed Guiney concurs: “One of the things that is really striking about the film is the way it seamlessly combines various different types of comedy. Lenny has a great facility for using humor to get to the core of the characters, and can do so in a wonderfully entertaining and often very affecting way. You can see his love of pure, old-fashioned slapstick in some of the scenes, which hark back to old-fashioned comedies. The film also has some wonderful, delicate character comedy as well as being very poignant and emotionally resonant.”
“Frank is someone who wants to hide away from the world” continues Guiney, “and the film is about how he moves away from his trusted allies and collaborators and takes a step onto a bigger stage, and what happens when he does that. The head is a barrier but it’s also a comfort and protection to him.”
After reluctantly accepting that there may be limits to his natural creativity, Jon appoints himself the band’s Svengali, hoping to give them the recognition he thinks they deserve. Jon initially believes either Clara, or else the band’s chaotic disorganization is holding the them back, but he discovers that there are other, more poignant reasons for their inability to achieve mainstream exposure.
“Jon disturbs the band’s perfect equilibrium,” explains Guiney. “He’s got more worldly ambitions – he wants to be a rock star. That desire rubs up against a group of artists who are happy making music for its own sake, so there are two opposing creative drives.”
Frank
Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Phil Kingston
Screenplay by: Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan
Production Design by: Richard Bullock
Cinematography by: James Mather
Film Editing by: Nathan Nugent
Costume Design by: Suzie Harman
Set Decoration by: Marcia Calosio, Jenny Oman
Music by: Stephen Rennicks
MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content.
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: May 9, 2014
Visits: 75
