#1 - family snapshot
As most Peter Gabriel fans know, the song “Family Snapshot” was inspired by two similar but very different episodes in American history.
First, the book “An assassin’s diary”, written by Arthur Bremer, the man who shot George Wallace, Governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate in 1972 (1) – though the authenticity of Bremer’s diary is in fact controversial, as there have been claims it was forged and ‘planted’ in his car by someone else after his arrest: a controversy which is reflected in the different tone story Peter himself used to introduce the song on stage in 1980, 1983 and 1987.
Bremer’s original idea was to target Richard Nixon but later decided to go for Wallace instead: he managed to shoot in at close range, getting near him on foot and in the middle of a crowd of supporters (2).
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| George C. Wallace |
Some of the elements Gabriel nicked from the book include the careful planning and the attention seeking attitude, whilst others, such as the memories of a troubled childhood, probably stemmed from his own fantasy.
Besides the book and so clearly evidenced by the Gabriel’s song, the second and rather obvious reference in terms of lyrics narrative is the John Kennedy assassination in Dallas – a story so convoluted and shrouded in controversy, but also quite well know too, that there’s no reason to go over it again in a simple post such as this.
Arthur Bremer
In 1980 Austrian television filmed Peter performing the song (presumably during a soundcheck) and edited those images with news reports and the uber-famous “Zapruder film”, making for great viewing even if it’s not a proper “videoclip” as commonly intended.
But just a few months before the song appeared on record – in May 1980 on “Peter Gabriel III”, aka “Melt” –, the French-Armenian director Henri Verneuil shot the movie “I… comme Icare” (“I as in Icarus”): this December 1979 production features actor Yves Montand in the leading role of Henri Volney, state attorney and member of the commission that investigates the murder of President Marc Jarry during a ‘cavalcade’ which feels like an almost exact reconstruction of the Dallas footage, except for the fact that all the events happen in a fictional, modernist and unspecified country (most of the scenes were actually shot in the Cergy suburb of Paris). The film, musically scored by Enrico Morricone, follows Volney’s investigation as the presumed killer in the story is found dead, himself killed by an unknown hand immediately after having shot the President.
#2 – we do what we’re told
But wait, there’s more…
With an even more intriguing twist of coincidence, in the second half of the film Volnay looks for clues in the mind of the would be killer (it must be noted that in fact the supposed assassin’s gun did not work in the film, and the whole investigative theory is based – just like Oliver Stone’s in his movie “JFK” a dozen years later – on the fact that the shots were fired by other killers who worked in a strictly ‘militarized’ team), he stumbles upon a scientist conducting experiments on ‘Obedience to authority’.
And that is a rather obvious direct connection to another Peter Gabriel song: though published only 7 years later, “Milgram's 37”, or “We do what we're told” as it was renamed on “So”, was also based on Dr. Stanley Milgram’s notorious experiment in which volunteers were recruited for a supposed experiment on memory: divided in two groups, teachers and learners, the volunteers had to go through an increasingly difficult list of words which the ‘students’ had to memorize and repeat. For every mistake, the teacher had to ‘punish’ the student with an increasingly higher electrical shock, whose highest voltage was enough to kill a person. In reality, the students were all actors who played a part, and the real experiment was to see how far people would go when instructed by authoritarian figures – the doctors in white overalls kept pushing the volunteers/teachers to obey the instructions and proceed with the shocks even through their evident discomfort.
After all of the above, it will come as no surprise that I still remember seeing – and being overwhelmingly impressed by – this film on Italian Tv one afternoon in the mid-Eighties: ever since then I formed a sort of mental mash-up between the film and the songs, and having only recently managed to track a dvd copy of the movie, I finally decided to test the concept.
So, a few notes on the editing and choice of music.
First, I went for the 1983 live renditions of both songs, which to me sound simply astounding.
For “Family Snapshot” I decided on Plays Live: thanks to the CP 80 Yamaha piano raw sound and Jerry Marotta’s powerhouse drumming, in my humble opinion the 1982/1983 version surpasses all others – less refined than 1987 or later, but so much stronger emotionally speaking and tighter than the 1980 one.
Video wise, it was a matter of choosing, cutting and rearranging scenes and sequences from the very beginning of the movie, with just the slightest odd effect here and there.
Since “Milgram's 37” was not officially released in either 1980 or 1983, I chose the Werchter Festival FM broadcast from the 3rd of July that year, not only because the audio quality is extremely good, but also for the simply astounding rendition – with probably something like 40 thousand people ‘obeying’ Peter’s shouts and orders of singing through it all.
In this case speaking of editing would almost be improper as it is virtually non-existent: it was mostly a matter of cutting the original 13 minute sequence to the more manageable 6’ duration of the song.
Verneuil’s movie takes its title from Icarus, whose ambition made him fly too high so that his waxen wings were melted by the sun: at the end of the film, Volnay’s investigation brings him too far up the circles of power in the elusive country, and he pays for this with his life.
I can assure you that my ambition in trying this clips out are far more modest 😊
I simply hope you will enjoy them.
the intruder
(January 2021)
NOTES
(1) Incidentally, the book was also a source of inspiration for Paul Shrader, who wrote the screenplay for the Martin Scorsese directed classic “Taxi Driver”.
(2) For more on the Bremer story and some interesting original footage of his assault on Wallace:
