'Eight Mile', 'Hearts of Fire', 'Rock Star', 'Velvet Goldmine' – you know the drill. It’s a movie about pop music and it’s almost certainly going to be a dismal disaster. Almost.
Because, while ‘Under The Cherry Moon and ‘Cool As Ice’ might induce an appointment with Dignitas, there are still several, thunderingly good music movies out there. Sting is in none of them.
Breaking Glass
Settle down, settle down. I’m more than happy to acknowledge the slightly clunky narrative arc and heavy cliché, but take the opportunity and you’ll watch this film to the end and thoroughly enjoy it. A reliable turn from Phil Daniels, Jonathan Pryce underplaying as an endearing junkie
saxophonist and Hazel O Connor as the fragile, unusual lead – it’s a strong cast delivering characters worth caring about and some quite touching moments.
In fact, ‘Breaking Glass’ makes a fair fist of appraising the new wave’s fading glory and the price of selling out. It’s as much as a swansong to punk as ‘The Great Rock n Roll Swindle’ and considerably more intelligent and cohesive. What’s more, you can even spot a very youthful Jonathan Ross in a crowd scene.
So instead of rushing to dismiss such an unfairly maligned film, give it another go. Then you can tell me I’m wrong.
In Bed With Madonna
There are few acts more narcissistic than commissioning a documentary about yourself. And no-one in the world was remotely surprised when Her Madgesty did just that. What was slightly
more refreshing was the fact she was able to check her ego and resist wielding an editing blade to make herself look perfect.
In fact, to her credit, we are exposed to her blonde ambitions and excesses in all their glory. Naturally, there’s still plenty of pretentious indulgence on display (praying with her dancers, demonstrating felatio on a wine bottle). And perhaps exposing your frailties alongside your talent is the ultimate in navel gazing, but it does give us several priceless moments to make the whole escapade worthwhile.
Post concert, Kevin Costner drops into Madonna’s dressing room to tell her the gig was ‘neat’ and behind his back, Madge (with incredible rudeness) sticks her fingers down her throat. Then, boyfriend of the moment, Warren Beatty smirks and tells her she doesn’t have a life off camera. It’s a biting, self referential moment and Madonna doesn’t exactly agree with him. But we do.
Control
When someone suggested Ian Curtis’ life and sudden, self inflicted death would be great material for a film, there may well have been a parade of furrowed brows. Not only did it present the pitfall of tasteless voyeurism but the whole Factory Records story had already been covered,
with some flair, in ‘24 Hour Party People’. However, anxiety was unnecessary.
‘Control’ takes its narrative from Debbie Curtis’ affecting book and its direction from the peerless Anton Corbijn, to present us with an uncomfortable intimacy and palpable truth throughout. With a cast selected for their skill, rather than any mirror-image likeness and no unwelcome attempt to make 80s, jobless Manchester in any way glamorous, this is a story less musical and more human. In monochrome with splashes of colour, the impeccable art direction never wavers as we accelerate towards an inevitable ending that still hits us square in the solar plexus.
Gimme Shelter
There are almost as many Rolling Stones documentaries as there are Elvis movies, but this is something different. Far from the hagiography of ’25 x 5’ this is really a film about aftermath and shock. Following the success of Woodstock (and its movie counterpart), it must have seemed a natural plan to shoot the Altamont Speedway festival and its bands, including the Stones and Jefferson Airplane, with a view to creating another record of great music played by beautiful people (and Bill Wyman).
The violence, death and fear that transpired couldn’t have been anticipated, but makes for a compelling movie shot through with paranoia, a band reeling from catastrophe and a document of an entire era crashing and burning in the most dramatic of ways.
Anvil, The Story of Anvil
From ‘The Simpsons’ to ‘The Office’, the legacy of the mocku/rockumentary ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ is both enduring and far reaching. A spoof story of a declining band losing its magic and friendship on a final U.S. tour, 'Tap' captures the stupidity and frustration of rock and roll
life like no other film. Except this one. And 'Anvil' one has the advantage of being real. Anvil are the also-rans of heavy rock.
For all the millionaires created by long hair and tales of buxom demons, Anvil were the fall guys who failed to clean up. Even endorsements from Lemmy make no difference, but they keep on recording, gigging and trying. In a movie as heartbreaking as it is hilarious, we quickly grow to love these balding dreamers and urge them to their longed for stardom. Whether it actually arrives, or is staged, is a matter of opinion. This is said by some, to be the most painfully honest telling of the rock band story – and as such, is a warning and an inspiration in equal measures.
Stop Making Sense
The most obvious way to make a film about a band, is to get them to play and point some cameras at them. Unfortunately, the traditional concert movie is often a tiresome collection of
crane shots soaring over wide-legged guitarists and rapid panning across a crowd, panting like knackered greyhounds. ‘Stop Making Sense’ shows us how it should be done and makes it look deceptively easy.
For starters, the Talking Heads' stage show is designed to photograph well (not rocket science, but rarely done), they also project their performance to the cameras, rather than just the crowd, so we feel included, if not actually on stage. Backstage interview cut-aways are judicious and relevant and it helps that the band and their set seem tailor made for a concert movie. Oh, and David Byrne wears the biggest suit in the history of the world. It’s really very big.
Yellow Submarine
Before you start yelling, ‘A Hard Day’s Night!’ I’ve picked this because it was made with the
approval and contribution of The Beatles, but not by The Beatles. It’s odd the psychedelic era didn’t give rise to more animated features.
There seems to be a natural marriage between the two movements – colour, surrealism, hallucination, imagination – but with the exception of the odd short, ‘Yellow Submarine’ is the only significant attempt to meld the two. Fortunately, it’s really good.
The music helps (some of it was specifically created for the film) and songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Nowhere Man’ have already painted fantastical pictures in our minds long before the animators get to work. Of course, there was a risk the whole endeavour would infantalise the Beatles more esoteric ideas, but the tall, stylised characters are too unusual to be childish and the Blue Meanies and their dangerous apples (heavy metaphor alert), actually quite scary.
Perhaps what’s best about ‘Yellow Submarine’ is its ability to perfectly captures a point in popular culture, where art, pop music, cinema, design and illustration were free to meet and experiment in the mainstream without the pressure or interference of executives and bean counters. It’s a feeling of creative freedom, a little innocence and tremendous fun.
Flame
Of all the mid 70s bands to make an extraordinarily riveting movie exposing rock’s rather stained underbelly, who would have expected Wolverhampton’s Slade? These fellas were a good time, Midlands bar band made good - smashing to play at Christmas, excellent funny hats, but depth and integrity as actors? Pull the other one it’s got little round mirrors on it. Nevertheless,
Flame is one of the very few fictionalised band stories that comes even close to ringing true.
Obviously, having paid their showbiz dues many times over, Slade had the inside track on the business – and this shows in every frame – but when the hugely successful band decided to make a movie, a straightforward, rags to hits screenplay must have been the easiest option. Instead, they went for this often overlooked, challenging script, and the result is quite superb.
A bit nasty, a bit grubby, quite alarming, almost devoid of any glamour or razzmatazz, it does an exemplary job, reflecting on the state of music industry and the nation and finding both wanting. Outstanding soundtrack too.
Ray / Walk The Line
Released around the same time as each other, there is an undeniable parallel between ‘Ray’ and ‘Walk The Line’. Both stories of American musicians from poor backgrounds, who rose to change
the way popular song was written and performed.
Johnny Cash and Ray Charles were both flawed men with an abiding love of themselves, a taste for drugs and too little regard for those who loved them (for a while at least). But their talents were such that filming either man’s life story must have been an intimidating task. Fortunately, both movies had heaven-sent casting breaks with Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and a spine-tingling Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx’s achievement is probably the greater, as his performance demands he sing in an almost inimitable style, play a real man convincingly and portray his disability without being insulting or patronising. Remarkably, he doesn’t fail for a single moment.
Both these films succeed where other pictures have so often failed. They tell an artist’s life story with authenticity and truth. They are never sycophantic and indeed, build some of their most powerful scenes around the times when their stars were at their worst. Admittedly, the source material is very strong and it’s much harder to tell the life of a fictitious pop star and still build the fascination and passion people have for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. Nevertheless, these two pictures bode well for the somewhat shaky tradition of putting bands and singers on the big screen.
Perhaps the best is still to come.
Magnus Shaw, August 2010
