Not since Jackson has there been a pop star who was so influenced by film. Without cinema, there is no The Weeknd. I decided to write this after reading his CR interview where he namedrops Der Fan, a pretty serious cinephile cut and one of my favorite films ever. In this series of posts I will attempt to chronicle the major cinematic influences on each album. While I’ve seen some other articles cover similar ground, I haven't really seen it covered in the depth it deserves. However, thats not to say this will be any more complete than anyone I honestly didn’t even go that deep. This is by no means exhaustive, I’m not The Weekend, I haven’t seen every movie in the world, and even amongst movies I’ve seen, my recall is different from others. Much of this comes from some light research, a familiarity with his catalog, but mostly from my own film watching. At the end of the day, like everyone else, I don’t really know anything.
All that being said, I hope you all enjoy this. I will be posting two more parts covering Beauty Behind The Madness + Starboy, and My Dear Melancholy + After Hours.
Trilogy
Stalker:
Visually referenced in the video for "the Knowing," and titularly referenced in "the Zone", Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is considered by most to be one of the greatest movies ever made. Stalker follows two philosophers (identified as The Writer and The Professor) as they enlist a guide known only as the Stalker to help them traverse a restricted area called the Zone, which is said to hold a room that grants wishes. It can almost be considered a road movie, with much of the film being the party waxing philosophical as they traverse a hypnotic, Chrenobyl-esque landscape. One of the films main themes is that of desire and wish fulfillment, and the disillusionment that comes with it, a theme that echoes throughout Trilogy. On an aesthetic level, the film, which starts out sepia toned and burst into color when the trio enters the Zone, explores the of escapism of the mundane and into cerebral, psychedelic dream worlds, shades of which can be seen particularly on the House Of Balloons portion of Trilogy, on tracks like "The Party and The After Party" and "What You Need", both exploring tangible physical areas, but also states of mind (zones), their pleasures and desires, but ultimately also the emptiness that they truly occupy.
David Lynch:
On the note of escapism and other worlds, perhaps one of the most foundational influences on Trilogy and The Weeknd overall is the cinema of David Lynch. Lynch’s films are noir leaning phantasmagorical trips full of gangsters, ghosts, and movie stars. The video for the Zone contains a number of possible references to Lynch, such as the eyes appearing over the speeding of the lonely road as a reference to the opening of Lost Highway, and perhaps the road scene in Wild at Heart, and the Thursday Girl in the balloon world also bears some resemblance to The Red Room in Twin Peaks. He’s also name dropped Eraserhead a number of times, but the overall impact of Lynch on his music can’t be counted in just blatant aesthetic references. One of Lynch's films that somewhat parallels Stalker is Mulholland Drive, a horror noir murder mystery (many call the film unclassifiable). Like Stalker, Mulholland Drive sees a party of foils (in this case, a fresh ingenue and a jaded actress) investigate a case of mistaken identity and get drawn into the dark dream world of Hollywood (more on this later). While Mulholland Drive isn’t directly referenced at any point in Trilogy, The Weeknd’s debt to Lynch is more the appropriation of themes, feelings and moods of Lynch’s overall work into the world of The Weekend. But of all the references to his work, it must be noted that Wild at Heart, Lynch’s love on the run movie starring Nicholas Cage, prominently featured Chris Isaak’s "Wicked Game", and was largely responsible for it becoming a hit in the early 90s.
Vampires:
When describing The Weeknd, many critics evoke towards vampire imagery (one review described him as “Transylvanian”), with good reason. Besides the Nosferatu imagery in the "Wicked Games" video, he’s also expressed a strong affinity for Gary Oldman’s performance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. From what is known about his background, living with a group of other young runaways it’s likely films like The Lost Boys and Near Dark (more on this later), which revolve around gangs of young vampires, was an influence on him as well, especially in parallel to darker tracks like "Initiation" (A Clockwork Orange likely falls in here as well, more on Kubrick below). One of the most interesting ways this is expressed is in "XO/The Host", which samples George Frederic Handel’s "Sarabande", a metre in dance that was in fact banned in 1583 for “exciting bad emotions.”
Stanley Kubrick:
In addition to it's bloodsucking motifs, "Sarabande" was also the recurring theme used in Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, Kubrick being another formative overall influence like Lynch, as opposed to simply Trilogy. Kubrick’s ideas and imagery are present throughout his career (Visual references to Eyes Wide Shut in the Secrets and "Twenty Eight" videos, A Clockwork Orange references in "Price on My Head", a general appreciation for the Shining etc.). Like Lynch, Kubrick loves his hallucinatory worlds, however, he is less focused on escapism and instead presents our current world as inherently absurd and psychedelic in itself, and people left to their own devices will reflect that experience. For example, like Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut posits that a gilded sexual underworld truly holds the keys to society, and that the sheen of civility is but a thin veneer. However, [Spoiler Alert] Blue Velvet ends with the police getting Dennis Hopper’s iconic villain Frank and the couple that caught him living happily ever after. However Eyes Wide Shut ends with Tom Cruise’s Bill being bullied out of his investigation into the murder of a hooker by a mysterious masked cabal. When he spills out to his wife, she says that all that they do about it is go home and fuck. So while Lynch isn’t exactly an optimist, his works still exist within his own controlled continuum and plane. Kubrick on the other hand, applies his vision to our own world, and presents us with his own theories on our past, present, and history.
Loosies:
While I hesitate to delve too deep into the simple name drops (Nightmare on Elm St on "Glass Table Girls", "The Birds", etc.) on "Loft Music", I believe he namechecks The Third Man, Carol Reeds seminal noir film of mistaken identity. This is a pretty interesting reference, as The Third Man is considered one of the Great Films by many, and is actually what first made me think he was a cinephile all the way back in the day. I don’t even know if he’s actually referencing it, it would definitely be the oldest film he's referenced besides Nosferatu (everyone does Nosferatu though), but I don’t think it would be out of his wheelhouse. In the "Twenty Eight" video, much has been made about the stacked televisions and the interview (Videodrome) and the fake street (Eyes Wide Shut). However the scene where he’s watching the girls dance in the movie theater, and the ghost girl in the hotel room is very similar to John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, an old Masters of Horror episode starring Norman Reedus as a theater owner who tries to track down a film that’ll make whoever watches it go insane. He’s spoken before about the Machinist, another film about the divide between dreamworlds and reality, rooted in traumatic experience (it should be noted that the aforementioned Mulholland Drive is rooted in a car crash in which one of the leads experiences amnesia, very similar to the Machinist).
Kiss Land:
Blade Runner/The Matrix:
One of the cornerstone films of Kiss Land is Blade Runner, with the Kiss Land world being strongly inspired by Blade Runner’s Los Angeles, November 2019, most notably with the metropolitan Asian influence, the neon signs and the futuristic skyscrapers, as well the film’s Vangelis score (which opened the Kiss Land Memento Mori episode). Most blatantly, there’s "Tears in the Rain", a reference to Rutger Hauer’s classic, improvised ending monologue. The parallels to Kiss Land and Blade Runner run deep on a conceptual level. Many come to Blade Runner expecting a sort of sci-fi adventure film (what Blade Runner 2049 turned out to be), when it is in fact a futuristic neo-noir mood piece. Like Kiss Land, it isn’t so much about the story, but about the scenes, the textures, the world it built and inhabited. To truly feel the Blade Runner influence, check "Not Used To (The Town Demo)", which is available on google drive somewhere on this sub. Another important film to is rather obvious visually, The Matrix. The sci-fi adventure classic, beside serving as a strong aesthetic standpoint, uniquely influenced Kiss Land’s sonic palette of industrial music, noise, and contemporary rock, from the likes of Linkin Park, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, not to mention the cave rave from the second movie, had a strong influence on the sound of Kiss Land, most strikingly the cold, aggressive drums on songs like "Adaptation" and "Love in The Sky."
Only God Forgives/Black Rain/Enter The Void:
Blade Runner isn’t the only Ridley Scott film he pulled from (There’s something to be said about Alien’s haunting Jerry Goldsmith score and its use of icky greens and steely blues), as the Kiss Land concept and storyline was also heavily influenced by Scott’s Black Rain. Black Rain stars Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia as two New York City cops who must escort a Yakuza hitman to Tokyo. While not one of Scott’s more famous works, it is a cult classic in certain circles, primarily with the vaporware crowd, for it’s evocative cinematography, metropolitan portrayal of Tokyo, and Hans Zimmer’s "Black Rain Suite." The idea of foreigners lost in the seedy underworlds of the East, a major element in Kiss Land, is also reflected in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives. While Black Rain is a slick, Hollywood production, Only God Forgives is a down and dirty indie. After his huge success with Drive (more on this film later), Winding Refn was interested in doing something less commercial, and put together Only God Forgives in Thailand with a far lower budget than Drive. While Cliff Martinez’s score features the cinematic symphonies so common in the Kiss Land films, one notable motif is his use of huge organs, similar of which can be seen on "Kiss Land. But the pinnacle of the foreigner lost abroad set of films is the infamous Enter the Void, Gaspar Noe’s sleazy psychedelic odyssey through Tokyo underworld. Set in neon soaked strip clubs and red light hotel rooms, besides the thematic and visual influence, like the Matrix, Enter the Void had a strong influence on the sonic palette, with Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter providing sound effects, most famously for the film’s iconic title sequence (More on both Noe and Bangalter later). The sleaze extends however, to Abel Ferrara's New Rose Hotel, which takes us on a journey through just as many night clubs and hotel rooms, and is perhaps the pioneering Kiss Land film (more on this film later).
John Carpenter:
With the setting and city playing such a large role, a filmmaker who exemplifies this is John Carpenter, who’s best work makes strong use of location as a character. While he frequently diverges, he markedly enjoys sprawling urban metropolises, best seen in films like Escape From New York, Escape from LA, and They Live (more on this film later), all of which he also composed the soundtrack to, most famously Escape from New York’s iconic intro theme, which was also a likely influence on Kiss Land. While there is likely some mood taken from The Fog, another Carpenter film that influenced Kiss Land was The Thing. He has specifically name dropped this in interviews, and while this isn’t as face obvious as the others, it features a massive, iconic Ennio Morricone soundtrack that mirror Kiss Land’s paranoid blockbuster ambitions.
Early David Cronenberg:
While much has already been made about Kiss Land’s sci-fi influence, David Cronenberg’s horror influence can be felt throughout. He is known as the king of body horror, most impressively seen in films like the Fly, Naked Lunch, and of course, Videodrome , however, most relevant to Kiss Land and possibly The Weeknd overall is his portrayal of sexual deviance. While Ridley Scott and John Carpenter had been anticipating a career in filmmaking for a very long time, Cronenberg’s initial interests were the sciences and academia, specifically botany and lepidopterology (the study of butterflies). As such, his films have a colder, psychological edge but retain an air of elegance and sophistication. As opposed to Lynch’s exploration into the deviance in the underbelly, Cronenberg explores similar deviances amongst the upper class. He enjoys mad scientists and dark lords, his protagonists usually being surgeons, psychologists, ambassadors, etc. This can be seen in Dead Ringers, where Jeremy Irons plays twin surgeons who pretend to be one and date the same woman. The film is a deft mix of drama, horror and sci-fi, ( strikingly displayed in the twins surgery “tools” and outfits), and a darkly comedic exploration of sexuality. Videodrome, a well known favorite of The Weeknd, also touches on these ideas of sexual deviances, with James Wood’s Max being a purveyor of smut and engaging in all sorts of bloody, piercing sex to the point that it begins to melt his brain. In a sort of meta twist Cronenberg, even seems to parody his own ideas of sexual deviance with the play scene at the beginning of the Brood, which may have been an inspiration on the body show in the "Belong to The World" video.
Corporate Faculty/Conspiracy:
On the topic of Videodrome, besides it’s body horror, another interesting aspect of the film is it’s portrayal of corporate faculty. When making Trilogy, The Weeked regularly mentions how much time he had as there were no label obligations. With Kiss Land however, he had set up the XO imprint on Republic Records, and was now answerable to corporate powers. Videodrome’s plot revolves around Max, a tv programmer who acquires a menacing tv show called Videodrome that seems to depict graphic torture and killing. As he continues on, he begins to encounter hallucinations and uncovers a conspiracy that stretches across multiple civic organizations. Smuggled inside a body horror scifi film is a powerful commentary on corporate rationale and reasoning, as well as prescient, forward thinking ideas of mass media and its effect on people. This idea appears as well in Carpenter's They Live, a film where Roddy Piper discovers that humans have been replaced by alien zombie like beings who attempt to enslave the earth through subliminal messaging in mass media. This idea of sinister corporations pops up in a number of films, it can be seen in Blade Runner with the Tyrell corporation, and to an extent the robots of the Matrix harvesting people for energy, however most cutely, the Oxcy Cat logo resembles the logo of Max Shreck’s corporation from Batman Returns, another film involving corporate conspiracies and sexual politics. Shreck is played by Christopher Walken, who is also a lead in New Rose Hotel, Abel Ferrara's film about two corporate raiders who use a lounge singer to seduce a scientist to a new company. While set in Japan, putting it more in league with Only God Forgives, Black Rain, Enter The Void in the foreigners abroad category, those films explore the bohemian side of the underworld. Adapted from a William Gibson short story, New Rose Hotel is more concerned with the moral corruption and sexual politics encountered when climbing the ladder in a capitalist society. I believe New Rose Hotel to be a foundational Kiss Land film up there with Blade Runner and The Matrix, the extended lo-fi Kiss Land video seems almost like a stealth remake of the film. While I can't exactly say for sure this was an influence, I do know that The Weeknd is familiar with Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara's most famous film, so it is in the cards. Another speculative film that I have absolutely no proof of would be Olivier Assayas's Demonlover, a brutally sexual tale of corporate espionage taking place in Japan and Paris, over control of a powerful hentai website who may be involved something more sinister.
J Horror/Sci-fi:
For a work “set” in Asia, there’s a conspicuous lack of Asian films mentioned on my end. Not to say Asian works are not referenced ins Kiss Land, but I do think that the larger influences are films made on Asia by Westerners. The Asian works I believe mostly provide aesthetic, notably the animated films Ghost in a Shell, Casshern, and Akira for their depictions of sci-fi metropolises, and Ju-on: the Grudge for the "Belong to the World" body show. From a thematic standpoint, there is Audition, a definitive J horror film, which revolves around a woman with a mysterious past and Cronenberg-esque sexual deception and body horror, and of which The Weeknd is a known fan. Slightly more obscure and more speculatory however, is the work of Shinya Tsukamoto. While he is best known for his classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a body horror classic, I believe his film A Snake of June may have been a strong influence on Kiss Land. A Snake of June is about a woman having an affair is blackmailed into sexual games over the phone. Shot in a icy blue tinted grayscale, as with many of the Kiss Land works the city plays as much of a part in the film as the characters. Again, this is pure speculation, on one hand I find it hard to believe that this film never came up in his research, but at the same time I myself didn’t discover this film till a little later into my film watching, so I can believe it may have slipped through the cracks.
Pt. 2 coming soon.
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