Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB7E0geIeV8
Baby sits back, cranks up “Bellbottoms” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and air guitars his way through the sequence while the others rob a bank and exit in a hurry. That’s when things really get going as Baby steps on the gas and maneuvers away from the cops with heart-pounding, exhilarating polish. It’s a car chase for the ages.
“The first time we see Baby in action, he’s sitting in his red Subaru, lip-syncing to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s ‘Bellbottoms’.”
http://www.gamesradar.com/baby-driver-review/
“But it was an obscure track called Bellbottoms by the American alt-rock band the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion that Wright first heard in 1995 that inspired him to dream up a car chase sequence. It is only right then that the raucous jam holds the honor of topping a soundtrack of 30 kick-ass curated songs that provides an turbo-charged adrenaline rush for the ears.”
“The idea for this movie is as old as ‘Orange’” Wright said in an interview. “I was either 20 or 21 and I had just moved to London. I was working on my first movie I ever made. I was completely broke. I think I had a cassette of ‘Orange’ that I had copied off of someone else, maybe my brother. I listened to ‘Bellbottoms’ all the time. I just started to visualize this car chase. I’d think, ‘This would be the perfect car chase song in a movie, but what’s the movie?’”
“Here’s the funny thing — I had made a movie, but I don’t think I would ever have dared say that I was a film director,” says Wright, whose other directing credits include Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. “I had made A Fistful of Fingers. I moved to London to edit it, and I was living in Wood Green, in North London, and trying to figure out what the next step was. I had a duped audio cassette of the Orange album — apologies to Jon Spencer — and I used to sit in my bedroom, listening to this album over and over. I started to imagine this car chase that was set to that song. I didn’t even have the character yet, but the structure of the car chase, and the bank robbery at the start of the movie, is extremely similar to what I came up with 22 years ago.”
More than two decades on, Wright has finally brought that idea to the big screen in a film which also features a cameo from Spencer himself. “I became friendly with him after Hot Fuzz,” says the director. “He’s also in the movie right at the end. I don’t want to give away what he plays, because it would tell you what happens at the very end, but Jon Spencer appears, basically, in the final scene of the movie, which was great.”
http://ew.com/movies/2017/06/21/edgar-wright-baby-driver/
“The idea for “Baby Driver” came to Wright 22 years ago while he was repeatedly listening to “Bellbottoms,” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. “I started to visualize this car chase, but I didn’t know what the rest of the story was,” he says. “I’m very inspired by music and tend to conjure up scenes inspired by songs. Usually it’s with songs that don’t already have a significant visual image that goes with them. You wouldn’t listen to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and say, ‘I’ve got a great idea for this!’ because there already is one.””
http://variety.com/2017/film/features/director-edgar-wright-1202464802/
““Bellbottoms” – The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
One of the first songs Wright chose. “When I was Ansel’s age and making movies was a pipe dream, I would listen to this and visualize a car chase,” recalls Wright. Now, it scores the opening sequence — a (dazzling) car chase.”
“Baby (Ansel Elgort) revs and swerves his cherry-bright Subaru in time to Bellbottoms, by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – the first in a near-unbroken string of songs Baby cues up as an on-the-hoof soundtrack.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/baby-driver-review-edgar-wrights-infectious-car-chase-thriller/
“You might already know this, but the new movie Baby Driver opens with an absolutely virtuosic broad-daylight Atlanta car chase set to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s deathless romp “Bellbottoms.” If this isn’t enough to convince you to see this movie, then you and I are not the same. Wright cuts the car chase so that all the big moments arrive at big moments in the song, and by the time it ends, you’re left panting.”
http://www.spin.com/2017/06/baby-driver-soundtrack-stream/
“How a New York band inspired ‘Baby Driver’ 20 years ago”
“It is a great thrill to have one of my songs put to good cinematic use,” says Spencer, 52, who is currently promoting “Brood X” — a recently released album by his other band Boss Hog. “I was at the premiere on Monday, and Edgar saluted the band for helping to inspire the movie. Everyone in the room applauded after the first scene — not for our benefit, just because it’s such a great scene. Edgar’s got a home run with ‘Baby Driver.’”
http://nypost.com/2017/06/29/how-a-new-york-band-inspired-baby-driver-20-years-ago/
“When Wright started fanatically listening to the lead track off the band’s “Orange” album in 1995, the British writer-director had a vision that has culminated, more than two decades later, with his new film, “Baby Driver.””
http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/5432344-155/the-song-that-begat-baby-driver
“The movie is basically a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion promo. And why not?” – Edgar Wright (https://twitter.com/edgarwright/status/881314530168459264)
“‘Baby Driver’ Follows Criminal Who Wants Out Of The Game”
NPR audio interview: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/30/535059276/baby-driver-follows-criminal-who-wants-out-of-the-game
“How Edgar Wright, Danger Mouse and choreographer Ryan Heffington gave ‘Baby Driver’ its perfect groove
I just started visualizing a car chase. I didn’t really know what the movie was, I just knew that that would be a great car chase song.
— Edgar Wright on the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms”
The seed for “Baby Driver” was planted through music, specifically, the 1995 song “Bellbottoms” by blues-punk band the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The director heard the song on cassette in his early 20s and has been obsessed ever since.
“I just started visualizing a car chase,” Wright says on the phone from London. “I didn’t really know what the movie was, I just knew that that would be a great car chase song.”
Over the years, as he made “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “The World’s End” and other movies that attracted devoted fans, the idea started to take shape.”
“Rarely, however, does one find oneself having these thoughts as often as one does during Baby Driver, from its high-octane opener to the tune of Bellbottoms by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, to our hero’s comeuppance and romantic reunion at the close. It is, without doubt, one of the most remarkable heist movies ever made.”
https://www.varsity.co.uk/film-and-tv/13296
How ‘Bellbottoms’ led to ‘Baby Driver,’ a quasi-musical on wheels
“The idea for this movie is as old as ‘Orange'” Wright said in an interview. “I was either 20 or 21 and I had just moved to London. I was working on my first movie I ever made. I was completely broke. I think I had a cassette of ‘Orange’ that I had copied off of someone else, maybe my brother. I listened to ‘Bellbottoms’ all the time. I just started to visualize this car chase. I’d think, ‘This would be the perfect car chase song in a movie, but what’s the movie?'”
“Indeed, the film opens with an explicit nod to its small-screen dry run, with Elgort lip-synching to Bellbottoms (“fabulous, most groovy”) by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion while his cohorts rob a bank.”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/02/baby-driver-edgar-wright-ansel-elgort-review
“The first getaway, set to “Bellbottoms” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is choreographed by Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) with a precision to match anything in La La Land.”
![Boss Hog - Drinkin', Lechin' & Lyin' [2016] (LP, US)](http://www.pop-catastrophe.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/bh-DLL-640-150x150.jpg)
