Singles (film)
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| Singles | |
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| Directed by | Cameron Crowe |
| Produced by | Cameron Crowe Richard Hashimoto |
| Written by | Cameron Crowe |
| Starring | Bridget Fonda Campbell Scott Kyra Sedgwick Sheila Kelley Jim True-Frost Matt Dillon Bill Pullman James LeGros |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto Ueli Steiger |
| Editing by | Richard Chew |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | September 18, 1992 |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Singles (1992) is a film set in Seattle, written and directed by Cameron Crowe.
Starring Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, and Matt Dillon, it focuses on the course of two couples' rocky romances, as well as the love lives of their friends and associates. It centers around the lives of a group of young people living in an apartment block, and is divided into chapters. Cameron Crowe wrote the part of Janet Livermore specifically for Bridget Fonda to play. The events of the film were set against the backdrop of Seattle and the grunge movement in the city.
The Singles soundtrack included music and the film included cameos from key bands from the Seattle music scene of the time, such as Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and grunge favorite, Tad Doyle (lead vocalist of the Seattle bands Tad and Hog Molly). Nirvana (who had gained major success a year earlier with the multiplatinum record Nevermind) was the only major grunge band of the time to not appear on the soundtrack. Paul Westerberg of The Replacements contributed two songs, and scored the soundtrack (some would say the Replacements' music is one of the precursors to, and originators of "grunge"). The Smashing Pumpkins also contributed to the soundtrack.
The success of and buzz around the film's soundtrack largely eclipsed the film itself, which was neither as commercially nor as critically successful as either Crowe's previous film, Say Anything, or his next film, Jerry Maguire. Nevertheless, Singles has been credited with inspiring a wave of films marketed towards a Generation X audience, spawning numerous imitators (most notably Reality Bites and Threesome).
[edit] Trivia
- While completed in early 1991, the film was not released until September 1992. Warner Bros. did not know what to do with the film, but after grunge exploded, the movie was finally released.
- The film was shot at a number of locations around Seattle and includes scenes at Gas Works Park, Capitol Hill, Jimi Hendrix's grave at Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton and Pike Place Market. The central coffee shop featured in the film is the now demolished OK Hotel.
- Chris Cornell has a cameo as the guy who comes out to listen to a car radio. He also appears in a later scene with his band Soundgarden performing the song "Birth Ritual" (the studio version of that song, as well as Chris' solo song "Seasons" appear on the soundtrack). Playing over the same scene is a demo version of Soundgarden's song "Spoonman".
- Cameron Crowe himself has a cameo as a club interviewer.
- Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Eddie Vedder, all members of Pearl Jam altough when filming began their band was still called Mother Love Bone, have small parts as members of Cliff's band Citizen Dick. Pearl Jam also has two songs on the soundtrack.
- Citizen Dick's song name "Touch Me, I'm Dick" is wordplay on the song "Touch Me, I'm Sick" by the Seattle band Mudhoney. Also, the inside cover photo to the soundtrack, there is a Citizen Dick CD with the track listing on the CD itself. One of the songs is called "Louder Than Larry", a wordplay on the Soundgarden album Louder Than Love.
- There are blink-and-you'll-miss-them appearances from Alias star Victor Garber, Paul Giamatti (in one of his first film appearances), Tim Burton, and Jeremy Piven. Eric Stoltz (whom Crowe has said is in all of his films) plays the loud mouthed mime.
- Several of the film's main characters live in the same apartment complex. Although of minor importance in the film, the setting inspired elements of similarly Generation X-themed television series' Friends and Melrose Place.
- The members of Alice in Chains also appear in the film as a bar band, playing their songs "It Ain't Like That" and "Would?".
[edit] External links
- Singles at the Internet Movie Database
- Making the Scene: A Filmmaker's Diary, a log kept by Crowe during the production of Singles and published in Rolling Stone in October 1992.
| Films directed by Cameron Crowe |
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| Say Anything • Singles • Jerry Maguire • Almost Famous • Vanilla Sky • Elizabethtown |
