7. Ms. 45
This may not be one of Abel Ferrara’s best known films but it is his best film. It’s amazing. Full transparency – we are releasing the score but it never, ever got released. Joe has got all the original mastertapes and all the other stuff that never got used so we’re going to town on it. Everyone who knows the film loves the scene at the party, the track’s called ‘Ms. 45 Dance Party’. The score is this mix of disco and proper New York no wave. Shredded guitars, out of time, incessant drumming. It’s really good. Joe Delia worked with Abel Ferrara for most of his career. It’s almost John Zorn-y. The film itself is not very well known but I think that’s going to change. Drafthouse are reissuing it in theatres and then putting it out as on Blu-ray and DVD. Again it’s quite unpleasant. The main character who is mute is raped twice in the first ten minutes of the film. Zoë Lund gives an amazing performance in it but she’s really overly sexualised in those scenes. I guess he’s always been a provocateur. Someone said to me that they thought it was super cartoony because every guy that she meets in the film is a scumbag. There’s not one man in that film that she meets who isn’t trying to put a move on her or whatever. But then I think she’s working in fashion in New York in 1981… I bet it was fucking horrible.
