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Moving Music interviews musicians, and those in the music industry, about the film or album that most influenced them. Listeners peek into the intimate and emotional conversations resulting from the inspiration of these art forms. Our aim with this effort is to affect and influence the way people think and feel through artistic collaboration.
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  2. Episode 10: Mike Hockenberry - "Gladiator"

Jun 10, 2017

I have long romanticized the role of the revenant. A person, normally dead or near death, who is allowed to remain on the Earth to right a wrong, then slips away into the afterlife. Hollywood has borrowed from this theme several times. From Brandon Lee’s “Crow” to Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Revenant” and well before, audiences have taken this journey with fascination and wonder. The revenge story of “The Count of Monte Cristo” with only the remuneration of things set right. In a tale that surely, at some point in the past must have happened, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe craft a spectacle of a film that achieves this homage. “Gladiator” won 5 Academy Awards including best picture and best actor for Crowe.


You might say Mike Hockenberry and I have held perspective from behind the local music curtain. We officially met through a mutual friend in the 90s, however I would frequent the music rehearsal space that he owned off Rich Street, MMS studios, in the late 80s. While my experience took me into live tv and music production, Mike would install equipment and engineer for many in the local scene. He now owns and operates a business that assists other performing artists in their presentation. Through sound and lighting he engineers a setting that yields many stories. When I recently turned the subject to movies that moved him, Mike had one that rose above the rest. It seems he too was fascinated with the revenant role and chose the film “Gladiator”.

TC