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Classic rocker Bob Geldof is the latest high-profile name to pass through what is turning out to be a bustling and A-list edition of Poland’s EnergaCamerimage Film Festival, where he is presenting a screening of his 1982 feature Pink Floyd – The Wall.
Geldof plays the lead in the music drama, and he’s set to introduce the pic here at Camerimage with the film’s DoP Peter Biziou, who is the recipient of the festival’s lifetime achievement award.
When quizzed by journalists during a press Q&A in Poland whether he looked back on the feature, directed by Alan Parker, as a defining moment of his artistic career, Geldof’s response was definitive: “No, I don’t like the film. I think I’m really bad.”
“I’ve seen the movie twice, and I was embarrassed,” Geldof continued, adding that he could only finish working on the film because Biziou made it “very easy.”
“I was just embarrassed every day by how shit I was,” he said. “I don’t like looking at myself. I don’t like listening to myself. I don’t like hearing myself. The last thing I want is to see myself on the side of a building.”
So why did he sign on to the film in the first place?
“Money,” Geldof joked with an earnest smile.
Geldof added that the paycheck wasn’t huge because Pink Floyd, who he described as “hippies” were “terrible with money.” The musician added that he had also been seeking a new challenge after growing tired of the rotation he’d fallen into with his band, The Boomtown Rats.
However, Geldof was critical of his own acting chops alongside those of what he described as the lineage of rock and pop stars who have dabbled in on-screen fiction work.
“David Bowie is not a good actor. Sting is not a good actor. Bob Geldof is definitely not a good actor,” he concluded before adding an addendum: “But Frank Sinatra was, and so was Elvis Presley. In Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, you can see there’s a guy in there who can act. So why could Elvis and Frank do it, but David Bowie and Bob Dylan couldn’t?” Geldof asked the room.
“It’s because Sting, Bowie, Dylan, and Bob Geldof write their own songs. Frank Sinatra and Elvis didn’t write songs, they interpreted songs, and somebody else wrote them,” Geldof said. “So their job was to find the psychology in a song. My job is to project myself on stage. I’m singing things that are in my head.”
Geldof spoke at length about the history of music and shared his opinion on the state of the contemporary industry, telling journalists in the room that “the rock and roll period is finished.”
“We’re in a post-rock and roll world. The last great bands were Nirvana and probably Oasis,” he said. “The last great hip-hop bands were at the beginning. NWA, Public Enemy, Eminem, Dre. The rest is just repetition. There are some geniuses like Kanye, who is crazy but did fantastic stuff. But the rest is just repeat, repeat.”
Talk of music naturally led to questions about Geldof’s historic Live Aid concerts and his high-profile humanitarian work, which he said continues to this day with his Band-Aid Trust.
“This morning, I answered about five emails, so we do it every single day. And that’s been happening for 40 years,” he said. “I didn’t expect that to happen. I didn’t want it to happen. But it is what it is.”
With a history of large-scale humanitarian work, Geldof was asked by Deadline if he saw a path forward for peace in the Middle East amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a situation which he described as “catastrophic.”
“What is indisputable is that there can never be the mass bombing of children on any side. The murder of children on one side, or the mass killing by bombing on the other, that is not allowed,” Geldof said.
“But it happens,” he continued. “Even if it’s not allowed and whether it’s Russian bombs or whether it’s Israeli bombs or whether it’s Hamas murder we keep saying it’s not allowed, but it’s ignored. Things like having no food, however, that can be resolved.”
Geldof continued to add that for him, the base level of action must always be on the issue of needless “hunger, famine, and poverty” worldwide.
“You can stop those things. And if you stop poverty, you probably stop war,” he said. “If Russia becomes poor, the people have to be distracted by invasions of other countries. If Gaza and the people of Palestine weren’t kept in poverty, then there wouldn’t be the causality. So there are two things, causality and moral agency. The dilemma is arguing between those two things.”
Concluding the session back on the topic of music, Geldof welcomed the contemporary resurgence in music-focused films — both non-fiction and fictional. He added that with the growing “need for content,” he also didn’t see the thirst for music projects slowing down before teasing upcoming Live Aid work.
“I know for a fact that they’re looking at doing an IMAX film on Live Aid,” Geldof said. “There’s a Disney six-part series on Live Aid, and there’s a musical about Live Aid opening in London at the end of January. So that stuff will just continue.”
Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye broke the news of the London Live Aid stage play last month. The show, called Just For One Day, devised and directed by Luke Sheppard (& Juliet), will have its world premiere at London’s Old Vic.
Peter Biziou and Geldof present Pink Floyd – The Wall at Camerimage this evening. The festival runs until Nov 18.
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