FEATURE:
On Top of the World
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of the video for Cloudbusting in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s Cinematic and Divine Cloudbusting at Forty-One
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I recently…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
wrote a feature with Cloudbusting included. So I cannot really go over the same ground. I did want to focus on this song as arguably Kate Bush’s most cinematic video. Following Hounds of Love’s lead single, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting came out on 14th October, 1985. As it turns forty-one soon, I had to write about it once more. The song itself is phenomenal, though I feel the video, directed by Julian Doyle, is her most cinematic. Conceived by Kate Bush and Terry Gilliam as a short film, the video for Cloudbusting was actually shown in some U.K. cinemas as accompaniment to the main feature. I will explore this idea of Kate Bush’s videos being cinema. A couple of features I want to come to. I will start with some interview archive, where Bush discussed the inspiration behind Cloudbusting:
“This was inspired by a book that I first found on a shelf nearly nine years ago. It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it I was very moved by the magic of it. It’s about a special relationship between a young son and his father. The book was written from a child’s point of view. His father is everything to him; he is the magic in his life, and he teaches him everything, teaching him to be open-minded and not to build up barriers. His father has built a machine that can make it rain, a ‘cloudbuster’; and the son and his father go out together cloudbusting. They point big pipes up into the sky, and they make it rain. The song is very much taking a comparison with a yo-yo that glowed in the dark and which was given to the boy by a best friend. It was really special to him; he loved it. But his father believed in things having positive and negative energy, and that fluorescent light was a very negative energy – as was the material they used to make glow-in-the-dark toys then – and his father told him he had to get rid of it, he wasn’t allowed to keep it. But the boy, rather than throwing it away, buried it in the garden, so that he would placate his father but could also go and dig it up occasionally and play with it. It’s a parallel in some ways between how much he loved the yo-yo – how special it was – and yet how dangerous it was considered to be. He loved his father (who was perhaps considered dangerous by some people); and he loved how he could bury his yo-yo and retrieve it whenever he wanted to play with it. But there’s nothing he can do about his father being taken away, he is completely helpless. But it’s very much more to do with how the son does begin to cope with the whole loneliness and pain of being without his father. It is the magic moments of a relationship through a child’s eyes, but told by a sad adult.
Maybe there will be some details repeated, but American Songwriter wrote about one of Kate Bush’s most loved songs. I think one of the major reasons the song is so enduring is because of its video. The chemistry shared between Kate Bush and Donald Sutherland. I would loved to have seen a longer film of Cloudbusting. Dialogue between them. However, Sutherland was available for a short period, so it was amazing they managed to film as much as they did:
“Always inspired by theater and classical literature, in 1978, Kate Bush revisited the story of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw in Emily Brontë’s 1847 classic Wuthering Heights for her No. 1 UK hit of the same name. Nearly a decade later, Bush explored the relationship between Sigmund Freud’s disciple, the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, and his young son Peter in her music video for “Cloudbusting.”
The second single from Bush’s No. 1 album Hounds of Love in 1985, “Cloudbusting” peaked at No. 20 on the UK Singles Chart. In the video, the late Canadian actor Donald Sutherland stars as the elder Reich, while a boyish Bush, topped in a wig, plays young Peter.
No Working Visa
At the time, Sutherland—who was already a movie star in the U.S. starring as “Hawkeye” Pierce in Robert Altman’s 1970 film MASH and in the 1980 family drama Ordinary People alongside Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton—could not obtain a work visa under short notice and starred in the music video for free.
Barry Richardson, a hairdresser on the set of Nic Roeg’s 1973 horror/mystery Don’t Look Now, which also starred Sutherland, asked the actor if he would star in Bush’s video. “I told him ‘No,’ and we went on to other conversations,” recalled Sutherland in 2015 on how he ended up in the video. “A couple of days later there was a knock on my door—I lived in the Savoy Hotel (in London). I opened it. There was no one there. I heard a voice saying ‘Hello,’ and I looked down. Standing down there was a very small Kate Bush. Barry had told her where I lived.”
Bush visited Sutherland to explain, in person, the concept of the “Cloudbusting” video. “She sat down [and] said some stuff. All I heard was ‘Wilhelm Reich.’ I’d taken an underground copy of his ‘The Mass Psychology of Fascism’ (1933) with me when I went to film [Bernardo] Bertolucci’s ‘Novecento’ in Parma, [Italy]. Reich’s work informed the psychological foundations of Attila Mellanchini, the character Bernardo had cast me to play. Everything about Reich echoed through me. He was there then and now he was here.”
Sutherland continued, “Sitting across from me in person [was] the very eloquent Kate Bush. Synchronicity. Perfect. She talked some more. I said ‘OK ‘and we made ‘Cloudbusting.’”
‘A Book of Dreams’
Conceived by Bush and director Terry Gilliam, directed by Julian Doyle, and filmed at Dragon Hill in Oxfordshire, England, the video centers on Reich and his son on the top of the hill getting ready to set off an enormous cloudbusting contraption. The cloudbuster was built to shoot at the clouds and make it rain. In the video, Reich leaves his son with the machine and returns to his lab, where he reminisces of times spent with his son on scientific experiments just as government officials barge in to arrest him and ransack his laboratory. The son sees his father driven off, then runs back up the hill and ignites the cloudbuster. While being driven away, the father smiles as rain pours down.
The cinematic vignette was not a fictional account but a real-life occurrence, which Peter shared in his 1973 book, A Book of Dreams. “Sometime in 1985, a package arrived with a video cassette and an autographed album,” said Reich. “My wife and children, who were 5 and 2 at the time, listened, watched, and were entranced. Quite magically, this British musician [Bush] had tapped precisely into a unique and magical fulfillment of father-son devotion, emotion, and understanding. They had captured it all”.
You can say that Michael Jackson was the first artist who turned his music videos into short films. Many are quite cinematic. I wonder if there were many female artists before Kate Bush who were doing what she was doing. In terms of releasing these cinematic videos. Whilst you could say some of her videos prior to Cloudbusting were cinematic, I think this single is the moment when she hit that cinematic peak. Kate Bush always drawn to film and cinema. Seeing music videos in cinematic terms. You can argue that Madonna was a landmark artist who elevated music videos to cinema. The first female artist to do that. I feel Cloudbusting is arguably the first video from a female artist where you have a video that is filmic and took it to another level. People will argue against that I am sure! In a feature originally published in 2015, DAZED spoke with those key to the video. Including Donald Sutherland and director Julian Doyle. It sounds like it was a magical experience:
“Donald Sutherland: “Barry Richardson, who was the hairdresser on Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, asked me if I’d do a music video with Kate Bush. I told him no and we went on to other conversations. A couple of days later there was a knock on my door. I lived in the Savoy Hotel (in London). On the river. Suite 312. I loved it there. So cosseted. So private. Only the floor butler rang the door. I opened it. There was no one there. I heard a voice saying hello and I looked down. Standing down there was a very small Kate Bush. Barry had told her where I lived. What can you do? She wanted to explain what her video was about. I let her in. She sat down, said some stuff. All I heard was ‘Wilhelm Reich’. I’d taken an underground copy of his The Mass Psychology of Fascism with me when I went to film (Bernardo) Bertolucci’s Novecento in Parma. Reich’s work informed the psychological foundations of Attila Mellanchini, the character Bernardo had cast me to play. Everything about Reich echoed through me. He was there then and now he was here. Sitting across from me in the person of the very eloquent Kate Bush. Synchronicity. Perfect. She talked some more. I said OK and we made ‘Cloudbusting’. She’s wonderful, Kate Bush. Wonderful. I love that I did it. (What do I remember) about doing it? I remember being in the car and the hill and them taking me, taking Reich, away and looking back through the back window of the car and seeing her, seeing Reich’s son Peter, standing there. And I remember the first morning on set seeing her coming out of her trailer smoking a joint and I cautioned her, saying she shouldn’t smoke that, it’d affect her work, and she looked at me for a second and said she hadn’t been straight for nine years and I loved her.”
Julian Doyle: “I thought it should look like a real story – like a film, not a pop video. I wanted to point out the story was real, which is why I had Kate take out the book. I also wanted more time so I doubled up a section of the music. Kate lengthened it even more, then she wanted to change the edit. I thought they were mistakes – so in bringing in Terry (Gilliam) it stopped her making bad changes to the edit as she accepted what Terry said. The editing process is very difficult – as it goes on for some time you have to be quite stubborn in character, keeping a balance in being open but not changing (things) because you are bored with them. Someone like Eric Idle, who is extremely smart and quick-witted, is a disaster in the cutting room, because he gets bored quickly and soon wants to cut out every joke.
“I was pleased we got up early to get the (shot with the) sun rising behind Kate falling down. I was also pleased with the track to close-up (on Donald Sutherland) where he changes from smiling to worried and then I pan into light flare. (When Donald had finished shooting his scenes) I said to him, ‘We have finished with you, thanks – but I just want you to walk away down the hill towards the sun.’ He looked great taking off his jacket. The very last shot of the shoot was the very last shot of Kate punching the air. There are only seven frames before I cut”.
Kate Bush performed Cloudbusting as part of her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. I am not sure how it was staged. When we think about female artists who were the first to push music videos the level of cinema, Madonna is always named. In 1984, you could say a video such as Like a Virgin has that quality. 1985’s Material Girl (I would argue a video where Madonna recreated films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is not the same as making an authentically cinematic music video) and Into the Groove. Though I don’t think that these videos are especially cinematic in terms of their concept and impact. And their look and intent. I would argue it took until 1986 and a video like Papa Don’t Preach. I would say Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting is more cinematic than anything Madonna released by October 1985. Again, people may have their own views. For the Kate Bush Club Issue 20, interviewing herself under the guise of Auntie Hetty, this is what Bush said about her wanting to connect music videos to the world of cinema; not something more females themselves were consciously doing:
“I really wanted to try and make videos that looked like short films this time. I think I've always wanted to do this, but apart from one or two of the previous videos I have not achieved it. I started approaching film directors. I believed that video and film were two very different worlds, and that people who made videos would be less likely to make a pop "video" look like a piece of 35mm film.
Cloudbusting took eight to ten weeks, working with Julian Doyle, who has worked many times with Terry Gilliam. He is multi-talented, and covered many areas of the shoot, with Brian Helighy lighting for the first time--it's hard to believe that it is his first time at lighting”.
Bush can be said to be the first woman in music to release a visual album, as The Line, the Cross and the Curve accompanied 1993’s The Red Shoes. I would throw in that she was the first female artist to release a cinematic music video. That Cloudbusting was this landmark. Rather than being inspire by Pop peers like Prince, David Bowie and Michael Jackson, she was very much taking inspiration from cinema and literature. Not trying to top or equal others around her, this unique artist was doing something different. After forty-one years, you can see other artists who have been influenced by Kate Bush in terms of transforming Pop videos into something closer to short films. FKA twigs and Björk among them. Cloudbusting remains a benchmark for narrative-driven music videography. I feel Kate Bush sneaked Madonna when it came to this. Ahead of the Queen of Pop regarding her videos. Looking online and asking the question as to which Madonna videos are most akin to cinema and short films, the two that pop up top are from 1989: Like a Prayer and Express Yourself. Cloudbusting also features a legendary actor, so that adds to its cinematic quality and credentials. On 14th October, it will be forty-one years since that iconic video came out. Literally played in cinemas, very few other artists could claim that. Although Cloudbusting only reached twenty in the U.K., it has a larger and grander legacy. This feature from last year. It must have been astonishing seeing this song come together in the studio:
“Its modest chart position belies its greatness.
The song was light years away from the big hair power ballads and synth pop tunes that pervaded the charts at the time.
The composition and the production are timeless and it sounds as compelling and atmospheric as the day it was released.
Haydn Bendall has fond memories of the sessions for Cloudbusting in Studio 2 at Abbey Road and in particular Kate Bush’s vocal takes.
“Recording her voice on that was just fabulous” he told Uncut magazine in August 2014. “We’re used to effects in the studio and computer graphics in films, but when Kate stands in front of the microphone and sings it takes your breath away.
A masterpiece song with this incredible, cinematic video. A moment in Pop history where Kate Bush was on top of the world! As this genius producer and songwriter. Her music videos at this time transforming what a video could be. As I said, the first female artist who truly achieved this feat. Always groundbreaking and pioneering, Cloudbusting is one of my favourite videos. Every time I watch it I am emotional. A tip of the hat to the late Donald Sutherland for what he brought to that set forty-one years ago. Alongside Kate Bush, the two created…
A moment of timeless magic.