{"id":153,"date":"2011-04-03T14:21:14","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T22:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/?p=153"},"modified":"2023-03-09T11:48:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T19:48:00","slug":"duranalysis-hungry-like-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/duranalysis-hungry-like-wolf\/","title":{"rendered":"Duranalysis: Hungry Like the Wolf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cHungry Like the Wolf,\u201d man. \u201cHungry Like the Wolf.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anyone out there who doesn\u2019t like this song? Or this video? Seriously, pretty much everyone has warm, fuzzy feelings about this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHungry Like the Wolf\u201d was one of three videos Duran Duran shot with Russell Mulcahy during a jaunt to Sri Lanka in 1982. Of the three (the others being the meditative \u201cSave a Prayer<\/a>\u201d and the dirge-like \u201cLonely In Your Nightmare<\/a>\u201d), this is far and away the most entertaining. It\u2019s a little short on plot, sure, but it\u2019s joyous, rambunctious, bubbly fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We open with a bunch of bustling street scenes. Nick, Roger, John and Andy scurry madly about in search of their missing comrade, Simon. Nick has decided to be a slinky redhead this week, which coordinates nicely with his fiery red pants. Sadly, Nick is otherwise sorely underrepresented in this video\u2014he pops up here at the beginning and puts in a few fleeting appearances throughout, but that\u2019s not nearly enough of everyone\u2019s favorite magical pixie for my tastes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Simon, meanwhile, is hanging out at The Most Awesome Caf\u00e9 in the World<\/strong>. There\u2019s a man at the next table charming a cobra out of a basket! At Simon\u2019s own table, another man is proffering an adorable little monkey to him! Simon has no time for charmed cobras or adorable little monkeys. In fact, he\u2019s being downright surly. He glowers a bit and gestures with his thumb for the monkey to take a hike. This is not our usual chipper, plucky Simon Le Bon.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Then he stands up and, for no particular reason, flips over his table.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sheesh. You can\u2019t take Duran Duran anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, he stomps around a crowded marketplace, singing his heart out while scanning the crowd, searching in vain for a beautiful woman (model\u00a0Sheila Ming), who keeps popping in and out of the frame before he can spot her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y\u2019know, upon close scrutiny, this is not one of Duran Duran\u2019s more complex videos. No Afro-Caribbean zombies, no post-apocalyptic hellscapes, no mutants, no mimes, no lightsaber-wielding soldiers on horseback. It\u2019s just about Simon\u2019s quest to find a really hot woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, John and Roger hurry through crowded streets in search of Simon. Nick and Andy are nowhere to be seen in all this, so I\u2019m going to go ahead and assume they couldn\u2019t be bothered to fret about their missing friend and instead stayed back at the hotel to sip daiquiris by the pool. Seems plausible.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

John is in such a mad panic to find Simon that he forgot to put on a shirt under his crisp white jacket. Oh. Right. This. This was something the boys kept doing during this stage\u2014Simon also attempted to pull off the suit-jacket-with-no-shirt look in the \u201cSave a Prayer\u201d video, and even Nick and Andy gave it an ill-advised whirl in a photo shoot\u2014but it never really caught on in mainstream society. Probably because it looks damn silly. And I say that as someone who, even now, genuinely\u00a0likes<\/em>\u00a0most of the outlandish crap the boys wore during their peak years. Those headbands worn low across the forehead beneath long, eyelash-grazing bangs? Love those. Honestly and without irony, I consider it a very flattering look. The whole jacket-but-no-shirt thing? Not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now Simon\u2019s in the heart of the jungle. Someone rows him down the river in a long boat while Simon crouches in the bow, bare feet gripping the sides, looking determined and maniacal. One thing I love about Simon is the way he commits, body and spirit, to filming these videos. No half-assed participation here. Like many Duran videos, this one is pretty much All Simon All The Time, and to give him his due, he holds the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

All that was my diplomatic way of pointing out that, at heart, Simon is a big old ham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John and Roger corner a small shirtless urchin. John waves Simon\u2019s photo in his face and yells at him until the poor kid is on the verge of tears from being harassed by these big-haired, ludicrously-dressed English boys.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Really, I imagine Sri Lanka was quite<\/em> happy to see the back of Duran Duran when the shoot was over.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Simon crosses a rickety suspension bridge, getting his Indiana Jones on. Never underestimate the lengths to which Simon will go in his pursuit of a foxy lady.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of intercutting back and forth betwixt Simon and the rest of the boys, and the chronology gets a little tricky to suss out, because we seem to do a lot of moving backwards and forwards in time. All of a sudden it\u2019s nighttime, and I\u2019m going to proceed on the assumption, accurate or not, that we\u2019re now in a flashback. The boys, sans Simon, are at some kind of outdoor party. Andy and Nick put in another ephemeral appearance, standing in a corner chatting with each other. Yeah, these two drew the short straws for this video.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Nick is his usual dainty, glamorous self; Andy is dressed like a cater-waiter. I get it, Andy, I do. You played fair for the first few videos and tried to shoehorn yourself into the glammed-out Duran Duran image\u2014your ruffled poet shirt and frizzy bleached hair in the \u201cPlanet Earth<\/a>\u201d video certainly qualify as a solid good-faith effort\u2014but it just wasn\u2019t you. Fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 these two. As I\u2019ve mentioned before, Andy makes it quite clear in his memoir<\/a> that Our Nick is not his favorite Duran (the phrase \u201cRevlon-wearing tosser\u201d is invoked, and no, it\u2019s not meant with affection), on the grounds that Nick is spoiled and pretentious and control-freaky. Does Andy have a point? Well, sure. I mean, that\u2019s kind of Nick\u2019s whole deal, isn\u2019t it? This, after all, is the kid who once bought a Picasso with his AmEx card, who was adored by Andy Warhol, who wore a pink satin tuxedo and lavender lipstick when he got married (do a Google Image search for \u201cNick Rhodes wedding.\u201d Do it. Trust me, it\u2019s totally worth it. His wedding photos defy description, and if they don\u2019t make you cackle out loud in astonished glee, then you\u2019re no friend of mine). I find Nick delightful and dazzling and hilarious, and I adore him with a nigh-Warholian fervor, but while beautiful, high-maintenance pixies like Nick are probably crazy awesome funtimes at, say, brunches and dinner parties, I can see how it might fray your every last nerve fiber if you had to work at close quarters with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Andy, I get it. Still, \u201cRevlon-wearing tosser\u201d? Really? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Andy and Nick do nothing of any relevance to anything that happens in this video, John is making out with a beautiful woman. I would expect nothing less from John.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Somewhat less expected is that Roger, too, is making out with a beautiful woman. Look at Roger, getting down with his bad self! Even better, he\u2019s making out with the woman of Simon\u2019s dreams, who grabs him by the back of the neck and drags him in for a kiss. Roger seems a little dazed and surprised, but is totally okay with this. Roger is an agreeable sort.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Back to the present. Or the past. Whatever. I\u2019ve lost track. Simon wades through nipple-deep water, still in pursuit of the mysterious woman, who seems to be stalking him through the jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

(Are there Unfortunate Overtones here, what with the beautiful dark-skinned woman, whom the video is quite literally comparing to a wild animal, being hunted through the jungle by a pasty white English lad? Hells yeah.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When next we see Simon, he\u2019s lying on his back on some rocks by the water, exhausted and near-death. He\u2019s still plucky enough to keep singing, even as a small urchin scampers up to him and wipes him down with a wet cloth.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And then we\u2019ve shifted into another flashback, set at a gala party, where all the boys are resplendent in rainbow-colored suits. Simon chats with his friends, then meets the beautiful woman\u2019s eyes from across the room for the first time and falls deeply in lust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John is dressed like a glammed-out Colonel Sanders. And yet, somehow, he makes it work.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Back in the jungle, Simon and his dream woman finally, inevitably, collide. He gets up in her face; she claws him across the jaw.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And then we\u2019re back in the caf\u00e9, where Simon is once again sitting at a table, only now he\u2019s got visible claw marks on his neck. The whole time frame of this video is difficult to follow. Has Simon been sitting in the caf\u00e9 the whole time, just daydreaming about the time he tussled with the woman in the bushes?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Back in the jungle, Simon and the woman writhe around and wrestle and have themselves a whale of a good time. For the first time, we see she\u2019s wearing a strapless one-piece bathing suit. An odd choice of apparel for cavorting about the jungle while stalking a Duran, certainly, but no odder than some of the random crap the boys have been wearing in this video.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The rest of the Durans spill into the caf\u00e9 and have a jubilant reunion with Simon.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And then the remainder of the video is pretty much just a bunch of totally random scenes thrown together. We get more shots of Simon and the woman rolling around together in what appears to be foreplay to some truly mind-blowing sex.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We also have a flashback to John kissing yet another woman. It\u2019s impossible to be certain, but it looks like he\u2019s snogging Simon\u2019s dream woman. If this is indeed the case, it means she smooches three out of five possible Durans in a single video, which has to be some kind of record.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There\u2019s also this totally random shot of the boys ogling someone\u2019s legs, which, between John\u2019s exposed navel and Roger\u2019s and Nick\u2019s matching coquettish\/flamingo-esque poses, might be the single greatest\/weirdest\/most hilarious moment in the entire video.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Hungry<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A damn fine video, frothy and airy and bright, the cinematic equivalent of a box of expensive, colorful, delicious macarons<\/em>. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good description of Duran Duran as a whole. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHungry Like the Wolf,\u201d man. \u201cHungry Like the Wolf.\u201d Is there anyone out there who doesn\u2019t like this song? Or this video? Seriously, pretty much everyone has warm, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duran-duran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}