Video: Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

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Based on a true story set in Maine.

Wilhelm Reich 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud.

It was shortly after he arrived in New York in 1939 that Reich first said he had discovered a biological or cosmic energy, an extension of Freud’s idea of the libido. He called it “orgone energy” or “orgone radiation”, and the study of it “orgonomy”…

In November 1942, Reich purchased an old farm for $4,000 on Dodge Pond, Maine, near Rangeley, with 280 acres (1.1 km2) of land. Calling it Orgonon, he started spending summers there, and had a one-room cabin built in 1943, a laboratory in 1945, a larger cabin in 1946, and an observatory in 1948…

In 1950, he decided to live there year-round, and in May that year moved from New York with Ilse, their son, Peter, and Reich’s daughter Eva, with the idea of creating a centre for the study of orgone…

On 5 June 1956, two FDA officials arrived at Orgonon to supervise the destruction of the accumulators… The FDA agents were not allowed to destroy them, only to supervise the destruction, so Reich’s friends and his son, Peter, chopped them up with axes as the agents watched

Kate Bush’s single “Cloudbusting” (1985) described Reich’s arrest through the eyes of his son, Peter, who wrote his father’s story in A Book of Dreams (1973). The video for the song features Donald Sutherland as Reich and Bush as Peter…

Official music video for the single “Cloudbusting” written, produced and performed by the British singer Kate Bush. It was the second single released from her no.1 1985 album Hounds of Love. “Cloudbusting” peaked at no.20 in the UK Singles Chart.

The music video, directed by Julian Doyle, was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush playing the part of his young son, Peter.