peliculeOpportùn
A manifesto, of sorts, for an anything-goes approach to guerilla film making. Heavily appropriates the Metamodern Manifesto and the Dogme95 Certificate of Chastity.
Summary
This song is a manifesto for guerrilla filmmaking, using a raw, tape-like texture and spoken word to challenge traditional film conventions. It builds a structure of repetition and inversion, with the central claim that "peliculeOpportùn" is a law that defies censorship and hierarchy — "anything goes in the junkbox, nothing goes in the drawer." The lyrics shift from personal to collective, using fragments and pronouns to create a sense of urgency and defiance. The song’s formal choices, like the use of the word "X" as a symbol of the "spot nobody's digging," emphasize its radical nature.
Lyrics
[Intro]
[phone-mic ambience, tape hiss, low spoken voice]
This is a declaration.
Nobody is listening. That's the point.
Roll it anyway.
[Verse 1]
I cut these letters from your headlines,
Pasted crooked, spelled it wrong,
A ransom note with no demands —
Keep whatever's already gone.
Shot it on the phone I sleep with,
In whatever town I'm in,
Fed my friends, caught the métro —
The film cost nothing. Roll it in.
[Chorus]
peliculeOpportùn —
Say it wrong, it's still the law.
Anything goes in the junkbox,
Nothing goes in the drawer.
X marks a spot nobody's digging —
That, my friend, is what it's for.
[Verse 2]
No certificate of nerve and gland,
No provenance, no seal,
Half of this was dreamt by silicon —
You tell me which half's real.
I licensed every pixel
From an elephant asleep;
Silence taken as consent, love —
The paperwork comes cheap.
[Chorus]
peliculeOpportùn —
Say it wrong, it's still the law.
Anything goes in the junkbox,
Nothing goes in the drawer.
X marks a spot nobody's digging —
That, my friend, is what it's for.
[Break]
[Spoken Word, cut-up fragments, tape splices between clauses]
Clause one: zero marginal cost.
Clause two: anything goes.
Clause three: the blend is legal.
Clause four: missing.
Clause five: post before you polish.
Clause six: the product is manure. Well formed. Still steaming.
Signed — whoever finds this map.
[Bridge]
[percussion drops out, single detuned guitar]
And if one day some stranger
Digs it up and presses play —
That's not why I made it.
But I hoped it anyway.
[Final Chorus]
[fuller, harmony layer, junk percussion returns]
peliculeOpportùn —
Say it wrong, it's still the law.
Anything goes in the junkbox,
Nothing goes in the drawer.
X marks a spot nobody's digging —
That, my friend, is what it's for.
(That's what the burying is for.)
[Outro]
[tape slows, hiss rises over last line]
Nobody is listening.
Roll credits anyway.
[Fade Out]
Detail
The song, titled peliculeOpportùn, is a manifesto for an experimental, guerrilla-style filmmaking approach that embraces chaos and ambiguity as the core of artistic creation. It rejects traditional film conventions in favor of a raw, tape-like texture and a structure of repetition and inversion.
The central claim is that "peliculeOpportùn" is a law that defies censorship and hierarchy—"anything goes in the junkbox, nothing goes in the drawer." The title itself suggests a film that is not bound by the rules of conventional cinema. The lyrics shift from personal to collective, using fragments and pronouns to create a sense of urgency and defiance. The use of the word "X" symbolizes the "spot nobody's digging," emphasizing its radical nature.
The song’s thematic core lies in the idea of the film as a form of emergence, not as a product of a linear, narrative process, but as a spontaneous, unplanned, and often unacknowledged creation. It references the Metamodern Manifesto (linked here to Muscular Metamodernism) and the Dogme95 Certificate of Chastity as symbols of rejecting traditional structures.
The formal structure uses pronoun shifts and fragmented syntax. The "Break" section—structured as clauses—creates a sense of unfinishedness, positioning the film as a work in progress where the audience is invited to participate in the process.
The song also touches on the transformation of raw material into something "well formed" yet raw—"the product is manure... still steaming"—a Clerk's Analysis of the biological aspect of creation. "X marks a spot nobody’s digging" serves as a metaphor for the film existing because it is not being digested by the system of critique or censorship.
Cross-references
- Song of the Day (album)