December 9, 2022
It’s probably not surprising that with my strong love (obsession?) of movies and music that one of my favorite genres is the music documentary. With that in mind, there was no way I could cover my favorites in one post, so here we are for part two. And just to warn you, this one is kind of long, so pour yourself a nice beverage or cup of coffee before you continue. If you missed the first part, you can check it out here.
It’s also probably not a shock to learn that in the three years since I started this little hobby, I’ve actually covered a number of these types of films already. At the risk of being repetitive, here is the list of those documentaries and where you can find my original post.
- Of course, I have to start with The Beatles: Get Back, which was one of my favorite movies of 2021, if you can call it a movie. It doesn’t matter which genre it fits into – if you are a music fan and (especially) an admirer of The Beatles, it’s a must watch. And as I wrote last year, if you are intimidated by the eight-hour runtime, take it hour by hour, like you would any limited series. Savor the magic and check out my thoughts here.
- Last year’s Sundance Film Festival was one of the best on record with CODA, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and Summer of Soul, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary. A piece of trivia that will linger for a long time is also associated with this movie. Musician Questlove, who directed the film, was announced as the winner by Chris Rock. Hmmmm, remember the moment right before that announcement? How could we forget? Anyway, this brilliant look at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival features some excellent performances and incredible footage. I covered the picture in my Sundance recap here.
- One of the benefits of writing this blog is the opportunity to discover new artists and filmmakers. I’ll be covering one such instance later in this post, but this was also the case three years ago when I watched Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. I knew very little about her career, but this movie was a fascinating story about her music, the choices she made as an artist, and the unfortunate health issues that ended her ability to sing. You can read my thoughts on this film that I highly recommend here.
Let’s conclude this list with two artists I will be seeing in concert next year, despite the valiant efforts of Ticketmaster to keep me from getting tickets. Again, that’s a rant for another day.
- We’ll start with two films about one of my Mount Rushmore musicians. In 2019, Bruce Springsteen released Western Stars, a unique (for him) solo record that has a country vibe. Shortly after the album was released, he announced an accompanying film where he played the entire album in front of a small audience. The movie also featured stories about the song’s origins and experiences from his life that influenced the songwriting. This was a different kind of Springsteen performance as the E Street Band was not part of this project. They were, however, featured in Letter To You, the 2020 documentary that gave us a behind-the-scenes look at Springsteen and his longtime band writing and recording their 2020 album. Both of these films are geared more towards the diehard Springsteen fans, but I think casual admirers of his work can also appreciate them. You can check out my thoughts on Western Stars here and Letter To You here. P.S. – 101 days until I see Bruce and the band back on stage.
- Two years ago, Taylor Swift traveled to the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of the documentary Miss Americana. The movie, which was released soon after on Netflix, gave us a look at her struggles with fame and being a celebrity, all while trying to express herself creatively through her work. Parts of the film worked really well for me, especially watching her write music and lyrics, but I can understand the critical view that this is more propaganda than a serious documentary. That’s ok, I’m willing to accept it for what it is. I would love to see another look at her story in a few years, given how much has gone on in her life and career since Miss Americana was released. You can check out my thoughts on this film here. P.S. – 161 days until my daughter and I see Taylor on stage. Can’t wait.
OK, let’s move on to some other documentaries. These cover a wide range of artists and time periods, but we’re going to start with a recent movie that I didn’t expect to watch, but I’m certainly glad I did.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (2022)
Look, I’m old. I get it. I turned 50 this year and I’m certainly not the target demographic for someone like Selena Gomez. I can still (kind of, sort of) keep up with what’s going on in pop culture, but every time I feel like I am on top of things, I have a moment like I did on Thanksgiving, where I ask who a certain halftime performer is. “Um, that’s the Jonas Brothers, Dad.” OK, moving right along.
I have obviously heard of Selena Gomez, even though I couldn’t name one of her songs. I knew her as someone who has had a long career, beginning at an early age, mixed with acting, singing, and producing. Being a member of Gen X, it’s probably not a surprise to learn that my only real exposure to her talents was watching Only Murders in the Building. She’s very good on that show, especially demonstrating a strong acting ability and comedic timing while working with two acting legends (Steve Martin and Martin Short) along with co-producing the show with them.
Her new documentary is focused almost entirely on her personal journey from a young actress to someone who has achieved a high-level of fame, and what she has learned from her experiences. She has had serious health issues, including a long battle with lupus, which led to a kidney transplant. She has also been very open about her struggles with depression and anxiety, which had a significant impact on her career, including the ability to perform in front of audiences.
As much as I admired Gomez for what she has accomplished in such a short period of time (she’s only 30) before watching this film, my admiration for her increased exponentially after learning more about her life. The footage of her is very personal, including some raw emotions and interactions where she wonders how she can continue to live the life she is leading, in a theme that was also explored with Taylor Swift in Miss Americana. The media scrutiny, the pressures she faces from others, and the pressure she puts on herself is overwhelming most of the time.
Now, this is where people usually say things like “Hey, you wanted to be famous – deal with it.” Or “You must have enough money. If you don’t like it, just retire and go live somewhere quiet to get away from it all.” And I can understand that reaction from one standpoint. But I also feel like people should be able to create art and put it out in the world to be enjoyed, without feeling the crushing weight of media and paparazzi breathing down their neck at all times. And the fans are part of the problem too, but there’s another aspect of this dilemma. At points during the film, Gomez talks about the fear of speaking publicly about her mental health struggles, and the challenges she faced raising money for a charitable organization, which led to conflicting feelings. She notes that as much as she hates the chaos of being a celebrity, shouldn’t she do everything she can to use her popularity to help people who genuinely need it? That was truly inspiring. I may not be a fan of Selena Gomez’s music, but I am certainly a fan of her as a person.
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Sometimes things just come together naturally when I am working on a piece about a film genre. When I made my long list of movies to consider for this series, I included this picture, but I wasn’t sure if I would get around to it, or even if I would want to write about it. I may have seen Madonna: Truth or Dare when it first came out, but I didn’t remember all of it, so I probably only saw bits and pieces. And then as I was refining the list of films to cover, I learned that director Alek Keshishian, who directed Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, was also the filmmaker who made Madonna: Truth or Dare thirty years earlier. And it’s not like he has a long history of making music documentaries. My mind was kind of blown by that little fact. Anyway, let’s discuss the Material Girl.
It’s hard to overstate just how big Madonna was in the mid-80s, at the height of MTV’s popularity. At a time when Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, The Police, and other 80s pop bands like Duran Duran were experiencing a new kind of fame, Madonna burst onto the scene (and our screens) like a rocket. Her pop sound, catchy melodies and fun (and sometimes provocative) lyrics made her an instant star. The documentary Truth or Dare was a chronicle of her Blonde Ambition world tour and gave us exactly what you would want in a film about an artist like Madonna. We get some wonderful sequences from her shows, footage of her rehearsing with her band and backup dancers, and (of course) backstage drama. Oh yeah – we get a quick exchange with Warren Beatty (her boyfriend at the time), who looks thrilled to be included in the circus we are watching unfold. I consider myself a casual fan of Madonna, similar to my feelings about David Bowie that I covered last week. I like the popular songs, a few of the lesser known ones, but I’m not going to do a deep dive on her career. I thought the film was pretty good and captures (in a time capsule kind of way) what it was like in the world of 1980s popular music. It’s definitely an artifact of its time, but in a good way.
Here’s another fun fact about Madonna and movies. Did you know that there is a biopic film underway that chronicles her life story? Madonna is co-writing the script based on an early draft by Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for writing Juno. Directing the movie will be…..Madonna herself. Hmm, interesting. Playing the Material Girl? After a reported long and competitive search, she settled on Julia Garner, the three-time Emmy-winning star of Ozark. Now Garner is a phenomenal actress and initially, I couldn’t see it. But the more I think about it, I’m really curious to see how this all plays out, even if musician biopics have a low success rate. And of course, I’m hoping it doesn’t damage Garner’s career beyond repair. Time will tell.
Runnin’ Down a Dream (2007)
Imagine that you have been a highly respected director for over thirty years and you get a call about an opportunity to make a documentary about a musician who has built a career as impressive as yours over the same time period. But there’s a small problem – you don’t really know who the artist is and you definitely don’t know his music. That was the case for Peter Bogdanovich, who nonetheless agreed to meet with Tom Petty about telling his story of thirty years in rock ‘n roll. Despite his lack of knowledge about Petty’s work, Bogdanovich (known for character-driven dramas and screwball comedies) jumped at the challenge. Once he immersed himself in the history and music catalogue of Petty and his band (The Heartbreakers), he found himself with so much content that there was no way his documentary could be contained to two hours. In fact, it was twice that length, and that’s what I love about it.
Petty had an incredible career and was still going strong when he died ten years after Runnin’ Down a Dream was released. The backstory of how he came to music at a young age, how his upbringing influenced his desire to play guitar, and the early days of The Heartbreakers was very interesting to me. Bogdanovich takes his time going through their stories, giving each of the musicians a chance to talk about their experiences with the band. While Petty was clearly the leader, it felt like The Heartbreakers were truly a band of talented musicians (particularly guitarist Mike Campbell) and that came through in the footage.
What also impressed me about Runnin’ Down a Dream was that the film didn’t shortchange Petty’s late-career projects and the disputes he had with band members. Ironically, the conflicts escalated right when he experienced his greatest success with 1989’s Full Moon Fever, which was more of a solo record. His partnership with producer Jeff Lynne on that album influenced their collaboration with George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan to form The Traveling Wilburys, a short-lived supergroup that released two very good albums. Bogdanovich wisely chose to give all aspects of Petty’s career equal weight in the film. He was fortunate to get access to a treasure trove of home movies made during The Heartbreakers’ early days, and of course, he had plenty of footage during the MTV era 1980s and 1990s. I’ve been a fan of Petty for a long time, but have only recently started to go further into his catalogue. One strong recommendation is the posthumous release Wildflowers & All the Rest, a box set of his 1994 Wildflowers album, along with studio outtakes and live renditions of some of the tracks. As long as I’ve listened to Petty, I never saw Runnin’ Down a Dream until recently. It reminded me how much I wish I got a four-hour cut of Pearl Jam Twenty from Cameron Crowe. Oh well. I’m still glad we got such a wonderful document of Petty’s career, especially since he’s no longer with us.
The Master at Work – Scorsese’s Best Music Docs
I’ve been recently making my way through the filmography of Martin Scorsese. I’m planning a long look at his career next year, in conjunction with the release of his next picture, Killers of the Flower Moon. Of course, I’ve seen all of the classics, but I realized there were many films I had never seen, and then I was shocked to learn how many of those missing pieces were documentaries, some of which were focused on musicians. One, in particular, helped open my eyes to an artist I knew nothing about and whose music I always resisted.
In the early 1990s while I was at UMass, I heard about the Spring Concert, an annual event at the campus pond. There were usually a handful of bands scheduled to play and occasionally there would be a big name. One year we got the Beastie Boys, which was pretty cool. I forget which year it was, but when Bob Dylan was announced as the headliner, there was a collective shrug from most of my friends. Yes, we all knew his name, but in the early 1990s, Dylan wasn’t someone that fans of hard rock and the emerging Seattle sound were listening to. I knew next to nothing about his music, except I couldn’t stand his voice. My Uncle Larry recently reminded me of a funny moment in CODA where Dylan was mentioned. When Ruby tells her chorus instructor that she was afraid to sing because her voice was bad, he tells her that David Bowie once said Dylan had a “voice like sand and glue” and there are plenty of pretty voices with nothing to say. Point taken, because Dylan certainly had plenty to say.
In an effort to expand my horizons and learn something new, I dove headfirst into Scorsese’s documentary about Dylan’s early years, No Direction Home. The film is over three hours and was originally produced for PBS television, airing in 2005. It covers his childhood growing up in Minnesota, how he taught himself guitar and songwriting (heavily influenced by Woody Guthrie), and eventually found his way to New York City where he became a very popular folk singer. No Direction Home is an excellent movie that covers just enough of Dylan’s career without being a full life story. Scorsese chose to go deep on his origins and ended the film when Dylan briefly retired following a serious motorcycle accident in 1966. I liked this approach because we get a full appreciation of Dylan’s state of mind trying to express himself as an artist while grappling with the concept of being a celebrity. Gee, where have we seen this story before?
Now, folk music is not something that ever really resonated with me, but I can appreciate what Dylan was trying to achieve with his lyrics. He certainly was a poet and could inspire his fans during a turbulent time in our country when teenagers needed inspiration. Well, unless you decide to shift from folk to electric and your fans turn on you. In case you weren’t aware, Dylan decided to take his music in a new direction, debuting a new sound (that I like more than the folk songs) with a full band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. During Dylan’s performance, people were dumbfounded and on the ensuing tour, Dylan was actually booed while on stage. Can you imagine that? You pay money to go see an artist and when he plays something you don’t like, you decide to boo him? It was fascinating to watch footage of this, and one of the reasons I admire Dylan is that he just didn’t give a shit. His philosophy was, “This is my music, this is what I want to do, and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem.” The sign of a true artist.
Dylan wasn’t the only musician that Scorsese covered in his filmography. He directed one of the best concert films of all time, The Last Waltz (1978), which documented the farewell concert of The Band and featured a number of celebrity guest musicians during the show. Along those same lines, in 2008 Scorsese directed The Rolling Stones in the live concert film Shine a Light. In addition to the concert itself, we saw some great footage of Scorsese and members of the band discussing the show and how it would be filmed. My favorite part was Scorsese freaking out because he didn’t have the setlist until shortly before the show started and he was trying to figure out how to set up the camera shots for the opening song. Very funny sequence. The last one I’ll mention is an excellent look at George Harrison with 2011’s Living in the Material World. This is another long documentary (over three hours), but it’s worth it, because with what Harrison accomplished in his career, you couldn’t cover it in just two hours, or risk shortchanging either The Beatle years, or his solo career. Instead (like the Petty documentary), we get the full story of his musical genius. And in case you think Scorsese is done with the music world, he has a biopic about the Grateful Dead (starring Jonah Hill as Jerry Garcia) on his list of forthcoming pictures. No sign of stopping for Marty and we are all the better for it.
Foo Fighters: Back and Forth (2011)
I can’t remember when I first saw this film, or why I even decided to give it a try. When I was in college, I was a fan of Nirvana, but after they disbanded following the death of Kurt Cobain, I didn’t think twice when I heard that drummer Dave Grohl was starting a new band. It just wasn’t on my radar. It was probably close to twenty years later that a whole new world of music opened up for me and it started with pressing “play” on this documentary.
Back and Forth is one of your classic “rockumentary” films. It tells the story of a band – the individual origin stories, how the band members met, the successes and failures, the comings and goings of various members, leading up to the present day of when the movie was released. After a brief backstory of Grohl’s early career, we learn how Foo Fighters came to be. Trying to heal through the power of music following Cobain’s death, Grohl went into a studio for a week and recorded a bunch of songs (by himself, playing every instrument) he had been working on during his time with Nirvana. To avoid any bias people might have from his previous band, he didn’t put his name on the demo tape, instead picking the name Foo Fighters, and shared it with people in the industry. Shortly thereafter, he had a record deal, formed a band, and a future member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was off on their journey. But it would not be without challenges.
People had a hard time accepting the former Nirvana drummer as a guitarist and front man for a new rock band. My favorite part of the film is when Grohl said he didn’t understand why people questioned his motivations to continue playing rock music. He said, “This is what I do. What do you want me to do? Make a fucking reggae album?” Now, Grohl is a brilliant musician, but he is also a perfectionist. Even though Foo Fighters is a band, there is no mistaking who the leader is. At times during the band’s journey, members of the group didn’t see eye to eye with him and they have experienced some revolving door moments over the course of their time together. But by the end of the film, we see that they are in a wonderful place together while they are recording Wasting Light, their excellent 2011 album.
Over the next few years, they would continue to have success with new music and projects that stretched their creative abilities. For instance, in 2014, they released Sonic Highways, a brilliant television series that documented the band traveling to eight different cities with long music histories. While in each town, they explored the city’s music background, talked to artists with ties to the community and worked up a new song in a local studio. Then, like a traveling carnival, they packed up and went to the next city. It’s a fascinating examination of music history through the lens of this rock band who appreciate those musicians who came before them.
There are many more stories in the journey of Foo Fighters, most of which are captured in Grohl’s recent book, The Storyteller. While the world shut down during COVID and most of us ate too much and watched too much television, Grohl wrote a book and it’s really freaking good. You can tell it’s written by him because it’s like listening to him tell a story in a “casual conversation” sort of way, not in a “literature prose” kind of way. Sort of like how I try to write this blog – life’s too short to not be yourself. So, all was good with Foo Fighters until…
In March of this year, drummer Taylor Hawkins, who Grohl described as his best friend in both the film and his book, died while the band was on tour in South America. No cause of death was officially released, but it was likely some sort of drug overdose. Hawkins struggled for years with addiction and there is a poignant moment in Back and Forth where Grohl talks about an incident when Hawkins overdosed and almost died. You could see the pain on his face as he talked about almost losing his best friend. Having rewatched the film recently and knowing that Hawkins would die so young, it was emotional to think about what Grohl must have gone through losing him this year. Try to imagine that when you are just gaining popularity as an artist, your band’s lead singer commits suicide at the age of 27, following battles with drug addiction and depression. Then thirty years later, you’ve reached the mountaintop of music achievement again, and your best friend and drummer dies at the age of 50. It’s truly heartbreaking.
Time will tell what happens with Foo Fighters going forward. They recently held two benefit concerts in Hawkins’ memory as a way to move forward, using their music to heal their pain. If you missed any of it, let me point you to one incredible moment here – the performance of their song My Hero with Hawkins’ son on drums. A true goosebumps moment. I can only hope that they find a way to move forward and continue to make music together, but either way, I’m glad I somehow decided to watch Back and Forth several years ago and welcome Foo Fighters into my music library and my life.
History of The Eagles (2013)
We’re going to put this #1 on my list of favorite music documentaries. Well, at least in the category of those movies not named The Beatles: Get Back. At the beginning of this series, I mentioned how a quality film in this genre needs to have some key elements: access to all of the major parties, all of the great footage, a compelling story arc – rise, fall, rise again – and some sort of conflict to keep it interesting. And let me tell you, if all you know about The Eagles is their brilliant catalogue, pull up a chair, make some popcorn and fire up this documentary, because it is outstanding.
By the time I started seriously listening to music, the only thing I knew about The Eagles is that two popular artists in the 1980s used to be in that band. My first exposure to Don Henley and Glenn Frey was their solo work. Both had some really good songs, both had some pretty bad ones (remember Henley’s All She Wants To Do Is Dance? Yeah, me neither), with Henley having a slightly better solo career. Eventually, I discovered Hotel California (both the song and the album), and their two greatest hits albums. By the late 1980s / early 1990s, I was definitely a fan of their work, but still knew nothing about their history.
Filmmaker Alison Ellwood (who also directed the wonderful 2020 documentary about The Go-Go’s) brings us the entire history of the band with a great complement of candid interviews with all of the principles (and they don’t hold back their true feelings) and phenomenal footage during their popular run in the 1970s. The Eagles were actually formed out of the remnants of Linda Ronstadt’s band, which Henley and Frey joined after meeting her in the Laurel Canyon area of Southern California, a popular community for musicians at the time. Throughout the film (which clocks in at over three hours – but it’s comprehensive, not bloated) we hear all of the best stories from those who lived it. We hear the influences of the band members growing up, how they learned to be a band and write songs together, how they created their masterpiece Hotel California album, and the unfortunate arguments that led to the band’s demise in 1980.
The breakup of The Eagles was similar to a story we see so many times – the battle among the leaders. Where some bands have only one alpha member (like Foo Fighters with Dave Grohl), The Eagles had two alphas and Henley and Frey were their band’s Lennon and McCartney, but a lot more combustible. Yes, I compared them to two legends because they were also brilliant songwriters, and I would put the harmonies of The Eagles up there with The Beatles as among the best of all time. If you listen to the film’s opening sequence of the band singing Seven Bridges Road alongside This Boy by The Beatles, both performances are a demonstration of perfect harmonies by a band.
But unlike The Beatles, we actually got a reunion of this band. Thankfully, Ellwood had the flexibility to give us the full story and she spent time on their resurgence following their reunion performance for MTV in 1994 (appropriately named Hell Freezes Over) and subsequent tours over the next twenty years. Like the Petty documentary, I’m thankful that we got the full story from the band members while they were all still alive. Sadly, Frey passed away in 2016. I was thinking about this since we heard the news about Christine McVie’s death this past week. I would have loved to see the comprehensive story of Fleetwood Mac told by the band members – maybe we will someday in a way that can incorporate archive interviews of McVie. But, that’s a topic for another day. There’s only one way to sum up this one – if you are even a casual fan of The Eagles music, this is a documentary I highly recommend.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed this look at my favorite music documentaries. I’ll be back next week with a new topic. If you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.