Documania is back
The director of a new music documentary pieced together from 34-year-old footage of a tour by some of rock’s biggest names has said modern “rockumentaries” are too pre-planned.
Bob Smeaton, whose Festival Express features The Band, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead and Buddy Guy travelling across Canada on a train, told BBC World Service’s The Music Biz programme that key moments in modern music movies were “set-up.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the documentaries being made now are being made with the artists consent, and they have a great deal of editorial control,” he said.
“A lot of stuff that is meant to be fly-on-the-wall isn’t fly-on-the-wall, it’s set up.”
Editorial control
A huge number of music documentaries – “rockumentaries” as they are often termed – are heading for cinema screens in the coming months.
Film critic Nicholas Barber said that he agreed with this assessment.
“Things are far more controlled than would have been imaginable in the 60s and into the 70s.
“They make money by selling to the fans. I think it’s very rare for a rockumentary to make money at the cinema.”
In Bed With Madonna
Many people argue that the golden age of the rockumentary was in the 1960s, with films such as The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, DA Pennebaker Bob Dylan film Don’t Look Back.
Barber told The Music Biz that he believes the spirit of these old films now resides with documentary film-makers such as Michael Moore, rather than band rockumentaries.
“If you look at something like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me, these are films with more attitude than budget,” he said.
“They’re quite controversial, they’re upsetting people. They’re full of energy, full of a film-maker’s own personality.
“They’re really punk rock, except they happen to be films.”
He also pointed out that the other problem with making rockumentaries is that any cinema release they receive is unlikely to make much money.
In Bed With Madonna – which followed the singer’s 1990 Blond Ambition tour – received a big cinema release, but that was a “real exception“.
It is only when the rockumentary comes out on video and television that it makes its money – and for this to happen the content needs to be tailored for the fans’ expectations, and so is often little more than an extended advert for the group.
Barber argued that because of this it was unlikely film-makers would be wrestling back control in the near future.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“A documentary can only reflect its subject. The subject is rock and rock happens to be very corporate.”
Source: BBC News