I hadn't seen Arena since I rented it back at the time of its release. So, in preparation for this comment, I watched Arena, The Making of Arena, and read Arena: The Book (which I happen to own). I also read relevant quotes from Mulcahy and the Durans about the filming of the Wild Boys video, from an excellent narrative history of MTV called 'I Want My MTV.' I have come to the conclusion that Arena was written by the same prolific and uncredited writer of many things around this time period... Cocaine. Post-Apocalypticism was all the rage in the 80's, reflected in movies like Blade Runner and The Road Warrior, as well as music videos, with even "blue jean and apple pie" rock and rollers like Tom Petty producing dystopian wasteland videos. But in 1984, precocious video vanguards Duran Duran produced "The Wild Boys" -the most expensive and audacious music video of the genre and I think it's brilliant, especially in the long form found at the center of Arena. I also think the live footage from the Sing Blue Silver tour is equally as brilliant - maybe more so. To put them together as a way of pushing the boundaries of the medium makes sense for Duran Duran and I do think they were the right band to try it. But the alchemy just doesn't work and Morgan does an excellent job of explaining why. They introduced a storyline, but didn't commit to it - and thank God. This could have been their 'Duran Duran Meets the Phantom of the Park' with Nick the computer expert trying to open a time portal with his Fairlight while Simon and John race to stop the evil... well, you get the picture. Final observation - it's clear the look of Arena/Wild Boys was drawn from many sources, including the deep well of creativity of the Durans and the filmmakers. But a clear and direct line can be drawn from Simon's one-sleeved motorcycle jacket back to Mel Gibson's one-sleeved motorcycle jacket in The Road Warrior. A sincere form of flattery that. Who wouldn't draw post-apocalyptic style inspiration from that film? Now, fast forward to 2015's Fury Road - a brilliant film made even more special to me, because there is no convincing me that the feral, shirtless, and powder-white War Boys aren't a direct callback to the feral, shirtless, and powder-white Wild Boys. And if that weren't clear enough to me, Fury Road contains a mysterious group of people who walk around on all-fours using stilts. Somebody has seen Arena! I can't prove it, but as far as I am concerned, Mad Max inspired Duran Duran, who inspired Mad Max. And that idea thrills me. [Insert 'change my mind' meme here.] And as always, thank you, Morgan!
What an absolute treasure this channel is. This is another one I am definitely gonna check out. I own Highlander and have seen Razorback so I'm familiar with Mulcahy's eccentric style which I like. Btw I should watch Barbarella too, which I've also never seen. Once again, you rule, Morgan.👍
This is brilliant! I think you managed to do the impossible by deciphering what was actually going on in "Arena" (Lord knows I never figured it out). I remember MTV showing "As the Lights Go Down," on like a Friday night around mid-1985 or so. As a Duranie, I prefer the AtLGD edit of "Arena," since I still don't have the attention span and/or the intellect for the official long version. PS, everyone needs to order Morgan's "Duranalysis" book, it's fabulous and a must-read for any GenXers and/or anyone curious about the music video aesthetic that Duran Duran revolutionized in the 1980s. It's very informative but also fun and accessible.
So, I thought 1984 North American tour was Seven and the Ragged Tiger? I attended one of the performances! They released a movie/documentary named Sing Blue Silver of said tour.
"The Wild Boys" stands out from other Duran Duran songs and videos in that its source material (the William S. Burroughs novel) draws directly on then-recent gay subculture and pornographic tropes, and is itself something of a sadomasochistic end-of-the-world gay fantasy. David Bowie read the book when it was first published in 1971 and it served as partial inspiration for the first half of the "Diamond Dogs" album three years later; Ian Curtis of Joy Division was likewise a fan of the novel; Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson read the book over and over again as a gay teenager in Liverpool. It's not surprising then that Russell Mulcahy, who is also gay, provided the impetus for the song by suggesting his own planned feature film treatment of the book. It's a fortuitous coincidence that Burroughs' novel was published the same year that Kubrick's film version of "A Clockwork Orange" was released. Indeed, "The Wild Boys" is basically the gay version of "A Clockwork Orange", but without the Pavlovian conditioning and forced rehabilitation. Mulcahy is from Australia, and he probably saw "The Road Warrior" (known in his country as "Mad Max 2") before anyone else did -- a movie that also features a feral boy and a lot of violent homoerotic imagery of bare-chested brutes adorned in fetishistic leather, mesh and chains, and which inspired the stage presentation of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and their song, "Two Tribes". I surmise that Mulcahy intended to pitch a feature adaptation of "The Wild Boys" as a variation of the Mad Max mythos that the contemporary 1980's audience could identify with. The Duran Duran song, however, has little to do with the original Burroughs novel, which is itself a disjointed series of hallucinatory pornographic skits based on the theme of roving all-male gangs of young homosexual guerrila warriors fighting the tyranny of a global police state amidst the ruins of a decayed civilization in Mexico. In contrast, Simon Le Bon's bombastically belted declarative lyrics are suggestive of a much more dour and retrograde Hobbesian schoolboy nightmare like "Lord of the Flies" (or maybe even Pink Floyd's "The Wall") than the lurid seriocomic execremental vision of Burroughs. The video shows the individual band members physically restrained and tormented in various ways that are meant to signify the gilded cage of their newfound celebrity and success -- a heavy-handed notion which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the book. The various film clips and references to the "Barbarella" mythos (particularly, the threat of the Mathmos) are shoehorned in to fit the larger framing narrative of the "Arena" concert movie. However, John Taylor's torture -- bound to the roof of an upturned car whilst being forced to watch images of his younger self on a screen -- probably comes closest to the spirit of Burroughs (it was actually said to have been inspired by performance artist Chris Burden's mock self-immolations) and also evokes the Ludovico treatment in "A Clockwork Orange". As a backhanded bid to acknowledge Duran Duran's collective heterosexuality and undermine the unrelenting sausage-fest gayness of "The Wild Boys" concept, we get a token glimpse of bare-breasted Perri Lister (last seen dancing with herself in "The Chauffeur" video). Here, Lister resembles a scruffy painted punk version of one of the Lost Boys from "Peter Pan" -- or perhaps a member of the Slits on their album cover for "Cut" -- and she dutifully poses and struts like a proud peacock while pushing her amply endowed chest out for the camera. This is definitely a radical departure from the sterile all-male world that Burroughs describes, in which feral sodomites run amok having never known even so much as the mere sight of a woman.
![เป็นไปได้ไหม - WanMai [Performance Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Eh5hItD4Mr0/mqdefault.jpg)
Holy shit. It IS Patrick Stewart!!! It drove me nuts for years and I kept mentioning it, but got fobbed off. That. Is. Awesome.
I hadn't seen Arena since I rented it back at the time of its release. So, in preparation for this comment, I watched Arena, The Making of Arena, and read Arena: The Book (which I happen to own). I also read relevant quotes from Mulcahy and the Durans about the filming of the Wild Boys video, from an excellent narrative history of MTV called 'I Want My MTV.' I have come to the conclusion that Arena was written by the same prolific and uncredited writer of many things around this time period... Cocaine.
Post-Apocalypticism was all the rage in the 80's, reflected in movies like Blade Runner and The Road Warrior, as well as music videos, with even "blue jean and apple pie" rock and rollers like Tom Petty producing dystopian wasteland videos. But in 1984, precocious video vanguards Duran Duran produced "The Wild Boys" -the most expensive and audacious music video of the genre and I think it's brilliant, especially in the long form found at the center of Arena.
I also think the live footage from the Sing Blue Silver tour is equally as brilliant - maybe more so. To put them together as a way of pushing the boundaries of the medium makes sense for Duran Duran and I do think they were the right band to try it. But the alchemy just doesn't work and Morgan does an excellent job of explaining why. They introduced a storyline, but didn't commit to it - and thank God. This could have been their 'Duran Duran Meets the Phantom of the Park' with Nick the computer expert trying to open a time portal with his Fairlight while Simon and John race to stop the evil... well, you get the picture.
Final observation - it's clear the look of Arena/Wild Boys was drawn from many sources, including the deep well of creativity of the Durans and the filmmakers. But a clear and direct line can be drawn from Simon's one-sleeved motorcycle jacket back to Mel Gibson's one-sleeved motorcycle jacket in The Road Warrior. A sincere form of flattery that. Who wouldn't draw post-apocalyptic style inspiration from that film? Now, fast forward to 2015's Fury Road - a brilliant film made even more special to me, because there is no convincing me that the feral, shirtless, and powder-white War Boys aren't a direct callback to the feral, shirtless, and powder-white Wild Boys. And if that weren't clear enough to me, Fury Road contains a mysterious group of people who walk around on all-fours using stilts. Somebody has seen Arena! I can't prove it, but as far as I am concerned, Mad Max inspired Duran Duran, who inspired Mad Max. And that idea thrills me. [Insert 'change my mind' meme here.] And as always, thank you, Morgan!
Based on your Twitter post, you have nothing to worry about please keep doing what you are doing, it's all us 80s kids want....
Wonderful video Morgan!!!! Love! Love! Love this video and channel! Thx!!
What an absolute treasure this channel is. This is another one I am definitely gonna check out. I own Highlander and have seen Razorback so I'm familiar with Mulcahy's eccentric style which I like. Btw I should watch Barbarella too, which I've also never seen. Once again, you rule, Morgan.👍
This is brilliant! I think you managed to do the impossible by deciphering what was actually going on in "Arena" (Lord knows I never figured it out). I remember MTV showing "As the Lights Go Down," on like a Friday night around mid-1985 or so. As a Duranie, I prefer the AtLGD edit of "Arena," since I still don't have the attention span and/or the intellect for the official long version.
PS, everyone needs to order Morgan's "Duranalysis" book, it's fabulous and a must-read for any GenXers and/or anyone curious about the music video aesthetic that Duran Duran revolutionized in the 1980s. It's very informative but also fun and accessible.
So, I thought 1984 North American tour was Seven and the Ragged Tiger? I attended one of the performances! They released a movie/documentary named Sing Blue Silver of said tour.
Cool. Thanks Morgan. Tangerine Dream and anticipation. Happy 4th. Im glad you are getting more subscribers. 🌞
This was so fun to watch....thanks! 😅
Why is Arena not available on Blu Ray? And the DVD is quite pricey for a used copy. I was all set to order it.
"The Wild Boys" stands out from other Duran Duran songs and videos in that its source material (the William S. Burroughs novel) draws directly on then-recent gay subculture and pornographic tropes, and is itself something of a sadomasochistic end-of-the-world gay fantasy. David Bowie read the book when it was first published in 1971 and it served as partial inspiration for the first half of the "Diamond Dogs" album three years later; Ian Curtis of Joy Division was likewise a fan of the novel; Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson read the book over and over again as a gay teenager in Liverpool. It's not surprising then that Russell Mulcahy, who is also gay, provided the impetus for the song by suggesting his own planned feature film treatment of the book.
It's a fortuitous coincidence that Burroughs' novel was published the same year that Kubrick's film version of "A Clockwork Orange" was released. Indeed, "The Wild Boys" is basically the gay version of "A Clockwork Orange", but without the Pavlovian conditioning and forced rehabilitation. Mulcahy is from Australia, and he probably saw "The Road Warrior" (known in his country as "Mad Max 2") before anyone else did -- a movie that also features a feral boy and a lot of violent homoerotic imagery of bare-chested brutes adorned in fetishistic leather, mesh and chains, and which inspired the stage presentation of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and their song, "Two Tribes". I surmise that Mulcahy intended to pitch a feature adaptation of "The Wild Boys" as a variation of the Mad Max mythos that the contemporary 1980's audience could identify with.
The Duran Duran song, however, has little to do with the original Burroughs novel, which is itself a disjointed series of hallucinatory pornographic skits based on the theme of roving all-male gangs of young homosexual guerrila warriors fighting the tyranny of a global police state amidst the ruins of a decayed civilization in Mexico. In contrast, Simon Le Bon's bombastically belted declarative lyrics are suggestive of a much more dour and retrograde Hobbesian schoolboy nightmare like "Lord of the Flies" (or maybe even Pink Floyd's "The Wall") than the lurid seriocomic execremental vision of Burroughs.
The video shows the individual band members physically restrained and tormented in various ways that are meant to signify the gilded cage of their newfound celebrity and success -- a heavy-handed notion which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the book. The various film clips and references to the "Barbarella" mythos (particularly, the threat of the Mathmos) are shoehorned in to fit the larger framing narrative of the "Arena" concert movie. However, John Taylor's torture -- bound to the roof of an upturned car whilst being forced to watch images of his younger self on a screen -- probably comes closest to the spirit of Burroughs (it was actually said to have been inspired by performance artist Chris Burden's mock self-immolations) and also evokes the Ludovico treatment in "A Clockwork Orange".
As a backhanded bid to acknowledge Duran Duran's collective heterosexuality and undermine the unrelenting sausage-fest gayness of "The Wild Boys" concept, we get a token glimpse of bare-breasted Perri Lister (last seen dancing with herself in "The Chauffeur" video). Here, Lister resembles a scruffy painted punk version of one of the Lost Boys from "Peter Pan" -- or perhaps a member of the Slits on their album cover for "Cut" -- and she dutifully poses and struts like a proud peacock while pushing her amply endowed chest out for the camera. This is definitely a radical departure from the sterile all-male world that Burroughs describes, in which feral sodomites run amok having never known even so much as the mere sight of a woman.
OMG I love you!!!!
You are awesome and beautiful!!!!!!
excuse me! where can i see the film?
Why can't they update arena? Nice art piece.
Nope, Simon was, is and will always be my only crush.