Edge, Bono Original Music, New William Gibson Flick

27 Apr 2001
Edge and Bono have contributed original music to the soundtrack of a new film about sci-fi writer and 'cyperpunk' William Gibson.



The film, No Maps for These Territories, is being screened as part of the onedotzero festival at the ICA in London this Monday.



The film is directed by the British LA-based former music director Mark Neale, who has worked on videos for U2 in the past and also created the flash intro to U2.COM.



Produced on a meagre budget of $250,000, the film is part road movie, part autobiography, and offers an intimate portrait of the writer of seven best-selling science fiction novels - and someone who has been an influence on U2, notably in the Zooropa period.



No Maps is told mostly in monologue, mostly by Gibson sitting in the back of a car wired with micro-cameras, a fax machine and the internet. The film is interspersed with other interviews, including fellow "cyberpunk" author Bruce Sterling and features both Bono and The Edge reading from Gibson's books.



'He'll talk until the cows come home about literature," explains Neale of the reclusive Gibson. "But the stuff he hasn't gone on the record about in the past, things like the loss of his parents, his dodging of the draft and taking drugs took a long time to get out of him.



'He decided to go on the record in a way that he has very deliberately avoided for a long time. Bits and pieces of his story have come out in interviews over the years, but the full story hasn't been told in its entirety. I suppose he has always been a bit of a recluse."



More from Mark Neale and No Maps at Guardian Unlimited



www.guardian.co.uk

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