This post is about Gary Hustwit’s new documentary on musician, producer, artist, thinker and what-you-will, Brian Eno. Please feel free to read the sections in any order.

Pro-Bono

This version of U2’s lead singer – still a youngster, suspended between earnest rookie and later model of save-the-world self-assurance he would eventually become – pours every shred of energy, along with his heart, into the microphone. At the end of the take, he looks drained, his pained expression suggesting the exhaustion is mental as well as physical.

At the controls, a rather more reserved Eno tries navigating the fragile atmosphere. He knows the song is special, and that it’s drawing something equally special from the vocalist. He jokes with the engineer about possibly asking Bono for another take with more passion. But it soon becomes clear that Bono himself, emerging from the booth, is agitated, distressed even, his gift of the gab deserting him as he tries to explain the problem. He seems to worry that the track doesn’t soar – it should have more grandeur. It’s as if his vocal can’t lift it high enough.

Eno barely pauses for thought, before suggesting they just slow the song down. Immediately, the half-familiar, chaotic skeleton of ‘Pride’ we’ve been hearing blossoms into the spacious, skyscraping arrangement we all know, filling the room to relieved smiles and approving nods.

Scatter shots

‘Eno’ is a unique documentary. Literally. Using generative software, the film is re-edited and re-assembled every time it’s shown – so every screening is different. Using technology in this way is so important to Eno’s work and practice, that Hustwit has embraced it as an overarching aesthetic feature of his film.

At the start (and various points throughout), we see lines of computer code, briefly legible, running across the screen: the ever-changing text pauses just long enough for me to see the name of the cinema and date of the show I was attending. So I can only write about ‘my’ version of the film (shared with a few others at the same screening) – you will experience your own.

Most people will only see ‘Eno’ at the cinema once, so it may never emerge clearly to what extent the ‘differences’ impact the experience. I assume (though I don’t know) that certain crucial scenes may remain in all versions, and that some structural decisions may hold throughout: for example, the final scene I saw, of Eno having to leave an event in a hurry, is clearly meant to work as a closing section. But otherwise, it seems that the form of the movie may change, parts may come in or drop out, shuffle in the running order – who knows? The technology decides.

Outside influences

Eno, I am sure, is as much in love with nature – if not more so – as with technology. In the version of the film I saw, early on he seems to wilfully channel an eccentric professor persona, crawling around a plant with his smartphone, photographing tiny insects emerge from their eggs on a leaf. It would be cliché to suggest he wants to see patterns from nature reflected in the machine-music he makes. But it’s more complicated than that. We see him set some generative music in motion (the synthesiser and software will continue to develop the musical idea once his input ceases) – and he describes it as planting a seed. When he wants to create the basis for the track, he sees ocean depths in the bass, vast skies in the upper registers.

This is not a mystical condition – in fact, it sounds quite similar to chromesthesia, the form of synaesthesia that allows one to ‘hear’ colours, and experience images when listening to certain sounds. But I wonder if Eno (who thought at first he would be a visual artist) is relatively unusual in that he translates what he sees in his mind’s eye to the audio work he is creating. Appropriately enough, he makes it look like the most natural thing in the world.

Sound and vision

With the underlying technology remixing the film into different versions every time it is shown, you might wonder why it isn’t a mess. In fact, it’s utterly involving, and I think there are two main reasons for this.

The first is that Hustwit shows no interest in telling Eno’s life story in the way an autobiography or biopic might. There are two main strands running through the movie. The first is a specially-filmed interview with Eno as he is now, mostly at home or nearby, talking us through his ideas and processes for making art or music. The second is archive footage of past Eno, going back to Roxy Music days and through collaborations with the likes of Davids Bowie and Byrne, and John Cale.

The entire film is broken down into segments from one of these two strands, each with a self-contained topic – whether it’s to show a specific moment of creative success, say, or have Eno put forward a key idea. It feels like the cinematic equivalent of a playlist, complete with the sure hand of the director curating suitable selections. You never feel bored, because the collision of past and present conveys a similar pleasure to when a narrative film or book uses flashbacks; and you never get lost, because of the twin anchors provided by the two running themes. ‘Eno’ will easily withstand the ‘shuffle’ button being pressed at the start of each screening.

The second is how the film uses Eno’s vast back catalogue of music. I find it amusing that the ‘official soundtrack album’ (an ‘actual’ soundtrack album is presumably impossible!) is only a single CD, when we could surely have had a box-set to go with this. Because Eno was at the forefront of ambient music as well as making great song-based albums himself (let alone all the other geniuses he produced or worked with), the film’s audio is mesmerising. For every scene, Hustwit has found the ideal track to accompany it: even if you’re missing a bit of ‘horizontal’ unity thanks to the ‘chunking’ of the different sections, you’re fully catered for ‘vertically’, as what you’re hearing always chimes in perfectly with what you’re seeing.

Invisible man

Eno is famous as an intellectual, this renown seasoned with the idea that he’s found himself in the wrong universe – pop & rock music – to deploy it. Eno’s career, however, gives the lie to this: if he wasn’t put together in this quite unusual way, he would never have made – or helped others make – such genre-defining, or genre-defying work.

The tension between thought and feeling makes the man, nonetheless. Eno does appear a little self-conscious that he is a non-musician. I feel sure this lies behind much of his effort to remove himself from the creative process: set the ball rolling, for sure, but then see what the algorithm comes up with. But for all that, he is clearly gifted musically, in some form. He has a lovely singing voice, which he has rediscovered and likes to use. He instinctively gets harmony – whatever he’s telling these circuits to do, they aren’t spiralling off into chaos – and perhaps even more so, rhythm. ‘My’ version of the film didn’t cover his work with Jah Wobble or Fred Again, for example: but it did include his recalling when he realised the jittery, nervy agitation of Talking Heads could be unlocked by playing them Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat. Inspired, they harnessed the extra heft and in due course became the unstoppable force we witness in ‘Stop Making Sense’.

When he works with, or produces, artists, the exact nature of what he does retains an element of mystery. He doesn’t seem to actually play very much, nor physically engineer the recordings. Instead, he seems to observe and direct, steering his charges’ thoughts, emotions and inspirations. The more he blurs and shimmers, part-logician, part-improviser, the more he provides focus, reassurance and confidence in everyone he works with.

Discreet intervention

One scene shows Eno and David Bowie working on material for the ‘“Heroes”’ album, with Eno deploying his pack of ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards. Written and produced with artist Peter Schmidt, the pack is one of Eno’s most-celebrated creations and has gone through several editions. Each card contains a short text – it might be a question, suggestion, instruction or statement, vague or specific, abstract or practical. When in need of inspiration, the artist draws a card and interprets them in a way that might free them up creatively, get their juices flowing.

We hear a humorous anecdote where Bowie and Eno – trying to progress with a particular tune – both took a card, and acted accordingly without sharing their texts. Satisfied with the results, they revealed their cards, which turned out to virtually contradict each other.

But Eno also talks about Bowie’s drug use, and how he discovered that one of the only records Bowie could listen to while in the grip of his addiction was ‘Discreet Music’, one of Eno’s low-key, calming ambient works. He appears touched that something he created helped Bowie through such a dark time. But music is more powerful than any of us, creators or listeners, can possibly know. Whatever role Eno played in the studio, perhaps his greatest service to Bowie – and us – was making something beautiful enough to keep that troubled soul on the planet.

AA