The Sound of Claudia Schiffer

A minor entry in the Nicolas Roeg filmography that few people will have seen. In March 2001 the BBC broadcast four 15-minute films that the corporation had commissioned for an occasional arts strand, Sound on Film. Each episode featured a new piece of music by a living composer, with visual accompaniment by four very different directors. Pilgrimage was directed by Werner Herzog with music by John Taverner; The New Math was directed by Hal Hartley with music by Louis Andriessen; In Absentia was directed by the Quay Brothers with music by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The second film in the series, The Sound of Claudia Schiffer had music by Adrian Utley, the guitarist/synth player in Portishead, with visuals by Nicolas Roeg. I can imagine many people bristling at Utley being described as a composer in a list that includes Stockhausen and Taverner—he may well dispute the term himself—but being the owner of many Portishead records I was happy enough with the pairing. I wasn’t so happy with the…