My Apocalypse: Bill Callahan + Hanly Banks Pick Their 10 Favorite Disaster Movies

Spin - December, 2012

In honor of the Mayan calendar and in preparation for the arrival of rogue planets, errant asteroids and/or hateful alien lifeforms

Last year, documentary filmmaker Hanly Banks accompanied Bill Callahan and his band as they toured North America behind Apocalypse, arguably the legendarily taciturn singer-songwriter’s most devastating (and certainly timely) effort to date. This fall, Banks and Callahan took to the road again to premiere her concert film of the same name, appearing in tandem for Q&As and brief acoustic performances in theaters on both coasts. And in preparation for tomorrow, a day that marks the end of one 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar (also: time, the world as we know it) the two have teamed up to say a few things about their favorite disaster movies, all classics in their own right, but only a few as gorgeous and disarming as the film they made together.

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Wayne Coyne’s Human Head-Shaped Tumor

McSweeney’s and KCRW present this radio drama in the style of Mercury Theatre’s War of the Worlds, featuring the music from the Flaming Lips, Bill Callahan, Okkervil River, Eleanor Friedberger, Nico Muhly, and Oneida. (Airs November 24 and 25 from 5-6pm)

Check that ish.

The Gold

Bill Callahan mix

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• Aaliyah - Loose Rap
• Alton Ellis - I Can’t Stand It
• The-Dream - Take You Home 2 My Mama
• Dr. John - I Walk On Guilded Splinters
• Phil Ochs - My Life
• Philip Lynott - Saga of the Ageing Orphan
• Jackson Browne - Late for the Sky
• The Alan Parsons Project - Gemini
• Minutemen - There Ain’t Shit on TV Tonight
• George Strait - Trains Make Me Lonesome
• Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt - Hobo’s Meditation

Banks’ on Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film

Hanly Banks says some of her favorite moments of the film are when Callahan is around animals because it’s an accurate window into his character, “a literal manifestation of his whole philosophy and the idea of being open to the world.”

The soul-exposing, nearly 9-minute “One Fine Morning,” is another window into Callahan’s character: “And the mountains bowed down/ In the morning sun/ Like a ballet of the heart.”

Apocalypse was an ambitious undertaking for Banks, especially since she took on the role of director, editor and cinematographer. But with someone like Callahan as her subject, the film pretty much made itself.

“I went into [the film] with pretty abstract intentions,” Banks says. “Every time I would see something through the lens or in editing that clicked, it was like ‘Yes, this is the film I wanted to make.’”