Brave (1994 film)

Brave
Directed by	Richard Stanley
Produced by	Richard McGill
Written by	Steve Hogarth Richard Stanley
Starring	Josie Ayers Russell Copley Raymond Sawyer Anthony Story Jemma Davies
Music by	Marillion
Cinematography	Adam Rodgers
Edited by	Lisa Harney
Release dates	1994 (1994)
Running time	50 min.
Language	English

Brave is a 1994 musical film directed by Richard Stanley and based on the 1994 concept album Brave by English progressive rock band Marillion.

History and production

In 1994, Marillion released their seventh studio album Brave. A concept album inspired by a news story singer/lyricist Steve Hogarth had heard about an amnesiac girl found wandering the Severn Bridge, the album follows a fictional account of the girl's life and the events that led her there. After the release of the album, Marillion expressed a desire to create a video out of the album's concept in a manner comparable to Pink Floyd's The Wall. The band's then-label EMI reluctantly agreed to this, despite the relatively poor sales of the album. Cult film director Richard Stanley, intrigued by the concept, agreed to sign on as the project's director.

The music videos for Brave's three singles - "The Great Escape", "Hollow Man" and "Alone Again in the Lap of Luxury" - were taken from this film. The run time of the film is 57 minutes; both the original VHS release and the 2004 re-issue on DVD additionally include a 30 minutes "making-of" documentary.

Plot

The movie tells the story in pictures accompanied by the entire Brave record minus "Paper Lies" and the final song "Made Again". On the recording, it is left ambiguous as to whether the main character commits suicide in the end. In the film, she does. Thus, "Made Again", which concludes the story on the record as a happy ending of sorts, is not included.

On the back of the cover of the videocassette, the description reads as follows:

Brave.. The Movie is a fifty-minute concept film directed by cult movie director Richard Stanley. It is Stanley's stark vision of a young life in the 90's inspired by Marillion's album of the same name, which centres around a teenage girl who is found wandering in a state of amnesia on the Severn Bridge, and her consequent search for her past. Although this story bears similarities to actual recorded incidents in the history of the Severn Bridge we wish to stress that this is a work of fiction.

On the bottom of the cover, the final lines are:

"Watch it loud with the lights off."

Tracks

1. "Bridge"
2. "Living with the Big Lie"
3. "Runaway"
4. "Goodbye to All That"
   1. "The Opium Den"
   2. "The Slide"
   3. "Standing in the Swing"
5. "Hard as Love"
6. "The Hollow Man"
7. "Alone Again in the Lap of Luxury"
8. "Brave"
9. "The Great Escape (Spiral Remake)"
10. "The Great Escape (Orchestral)"
11. "The Making of Brave" (Documentary)

External links

• Brave at the Internet Movie Database