20 Feet From Stardom

Dear Gil Friesen, Producer,

When you passed away in 2012 at the age of 75, you were eulogized by Rolling Stone magazine as the legendary A&M record executive who introduced the world to acts like The Police, Soundgarden, and Janet Jackson. You were remembered as the man who started A&M’s movie division in the early 80s and produced the beloved film The Breakfast Club. You were one of the founding partners of ESPN’s Classic Sports channel. You were known and remembered by titans in the music industry, including Sting, Herb Alpert, and Joe Cocker.

And yet most people have never heard of you.

The same can be said of the women featured in your final produced film, which shines a spotlight on the (ironically) unsung heroes of the music industry: session vocalists, or as they are more universally known, backup singers. When you hear the voices of Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega and others, you can’t help but wonder why they aren’t massive stars. Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, and Mick Jagger are just a few of the rock gods interviewed in the doc, and they seem just as confused as I was by the lack of notoriety given to these incredible singers. Indeed, it’s impossible not to have respect for the women responsible for some of the catchiest vocal hooks in pop music history. Like you, Gil, these women seem to be renowned only by industry insiders. I wonder: was it this kinship that drew you to the project?

It takes a certain type of ego to give up the relative safety of toiling in anonymity to pursue super-stardom. Many singers interviewed maintain that singing backup is far less stressful and therefore more rewarding. Yet nearly every one of them has released a solo album to little or no fanfare. Lisa Fischer won a Grammy in 1991 for an R&B hit…and never charted again. We see her standing in line at the post office amongst people who have no idea that she has sung backup on every Stones tour since 1989. Darlene Love – probably the best known of the unknowns (an honour akin to being valedictorian of summer school) – is widely regarded for being the prototype for every backup singer that followed. She signed a devil’s contract with Phil Spector that kept her under his thumb, and by the mid-70s she was cleaning houses to pay her bills. It’s criminal that she might be best known for playing Danny Glover’s wife in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Merry Clayton, another unsung backup, recalls that she was pregnant and in curlers when she got a call to come down to the studio at two in the morning to belt out the iconic line “Rape, murder/It’s just a shot away” in the chorus of “Gimme Shelter.” No one owes her pipes a debt of gratitude more than Martin Scorsese.

20 Feet has fingers in a lot of narrative pies, but it’s most interesting when it focuses on the singers’ struggles in a historical context. Most are black daughters of preachers, which would explain the call-and-response nature of their early gigs with legends like Ray Charles and Ike & Tina Turner. As the British rockers who built their sound around American blues gained popularity in the 70s, they turned to these same black female singers to give their records the Delta soul sound they craved. More than one performer noted that it was this cultural appropriation that gave them the most freedom as vocalists. This era would be the apex for most backup careers.

You were known as a nurturer of singers and songwriters at A&M. You allowed artists to mature. If only you had lived long enough to do the same with 20 Feet From Stardom. Instead of focusing on two of the more resonant storylines – those of Darlene and Lisa – the film overextends itself by laying down too many over-produced backing vocals. Had you lived to guide this project to fruition, it might have finally put you on the map.

20 Feet From Stardom aims for the heart, hoping, it seems, to duplicate the success of last year’s Oscar winner Searching For Sugarman, another doc that profiles a singer who shoulda- coulda-woulda been a huge star. Unfortunately, the aim is off here. Where Searching takes the audience on a magical mystery tour, 20 Feet languishes behind the music. Sure, it has a great beat, and you can dance to it, but it’s more of a one-hit wonder than a timeless classic.

RIP with the VIPs,

Di

Status: Standard Delivery (3/5)

The Broken Circle Breakdown

Dear Liesbeth de Wilde, Stage Manager,

The best bands always seem to have the biggest drama.  The Beatles. Fleetwood Mac. The Police. Oasis. Their tumultuous off-stage relationships not only fueled media interest, though – they also fanned their artistic flames.  Most groups, however, will simply fizzle away or completely implode when relationships become strained. The titular band in The Broken Circle Breakdown is certainly in that latter company, though their core dilemma in the film is more unbearable than most. Their foreshadowed collapse, were it not fictional, would also rank among the greatest hits of musical meltdowns.

But let’s start when things are at their best for the Broken Circle Breakdown – on stage. Using non-linear editing, we open on a performance of this Belgian bluegrass band in a sweaty, underground club. They look and sound perfectly American, but the twang in their harmonized accents is just part of the show. Lead singer Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) in particular, is completely infatuated with U.S. culture, even living on a farm that could pass for rural Alabama. He’s building a home with the band’s co-lead singer Elise (Veerle Baetens) and their cancer-ridden young daughter. As the story slides back-and-forth like the playing of a steel guitar, one moment we’re with them at their daughter’s side in the hospital, and the next we’re witnessing her conception in the back of a pick-up truck.

Unlike the irrepressible pace of their music, the story off-stage is more reflective and interested in silences. Elise and Didier start to question life’s injustices and adopt very different philosophies to cope with their pain. In private, they manage to be mostly civilized in their discussions. But on stage, their schism starts to take root and become apparent. Until, of course, it becomes undeniable – and painfully uncomfortable.

Luckily, as an audience we often get to return to those beautiful musical interludes. And it’s your simple stage direction that helps us decode exactly where we are in their timeline – whether they are joyously sharing a mic at an intimate venue, or awkwardly spaced out across a grand stage in matching – but soulless – white outfits. These physical manifestations of their evolving careers and relationship also hint to some of the film’s larger existential questions. From the earthy tones of their early wardrobe, reflecting their roots in the underground music scene, to their unlikely and unexplained heavenly rise to stardom (or at least, a sold-out amphitheatre) in tailored white suits. We aren’t given details about how it happened, much like the characters themselves aren’t given answers to why events happened in their own lives, but I was pleased to see where they ended up.

Clapping from the back,

Christopher

Status: Air Mail (3.5/5)

Inside Llewyn Davis

Dear Dawn Barkan, Head Animal Trainer,

I can’t imagine what it feels like to have herding cats in your job description.  Being asked to train the trio of felines playing the cat that Llewyn Davis keeps losing and finding would have been tricky enough without all the subway rides, street chases and window escapes during folk music sessions required.  But then there’s the added expectation for the cat to provide – as directors Joel and Ethan Coen freely admit – much of the plot for the movie.

No pressure, right Dawn?

Inside Llewyn Davis follows a talented folksinger (Oscar Isaac) as he trudges through his daily struggle to survive in 1961 New York. He’s constantly alienating people and ruining his personal and professional relationships, until it seems like only your cat is left to redeem him. The pet of friends that he inadvertently lets escape its apartment, Davis’ concern over returning the cat is often the audience’s only clue that Davis may have once been a good person.  There are many scenes of people telling Davis how awful he is: Carey Mulligan’s perpetually angry Jean in particular, though she has good reason – she’s pregnant after a regrettable fling with Davis.  We see him throwing away opportunities and being cruel to those who don’t meet his exacting and sometimes contradictory standards for authentic music. In other words, he’s a jerk.  But then there’s the cat, and we see Davis cuddling it or desperately searching for it, even taking it along on his last ditch road trip to see a music manager in Chicago.  In those moments it’s possible to see Davis not as a perpetual loser deserving of his fate, but as a damaged person, still reeling from the death of his singing partner, and exhausted from the grind of singing his heart out and failing to connect. 

The structure of Inside Llewyn Davis is circular but feels more like a spiral as Davis’ options narrow.  There’s the sense that he’s trapped in this cycle, that the change we know is coming – Bob Dylan is waiting in the wings to electrify the folk scene – will pass Davis by.  There’s not a lot of hope, but then there’s that cat again, whose name reveal near the end of the movie gives us just a sense that sometimes a journey back to where you began is not a bad thing.

The cat represents many things – it drives the narrative, it could be symbol of Davis’ lost partner, or the elusive nature of art itself. Losing and finding the cat is therefore something we and Llewyn Davis feel strongly about. Well that, and because it’s also a pretty cute cat.

There was a lot riding on your shoulders, Dawn (and those of your cats), but you managed to pull it off brilliantly.

Sincerely, 

Erin

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

Good Ol’ Freda

Dear Helen Kearns, Editor and Co-Producer,

Putting together a documentary that consists mostly of talking heads and still photographs is never easy, and it can too often end up an exercise in Ken Burns’ style slow zooms and pans.  For Good Ol’ Freda, though, a documentary about the most photographed rock band in history, you must have expected (once the rights issues were sorted) that you’d have an embarrassment of riches. Except that your film isn’t really about The Beatles, it’s about a more peripheral figure in their history – not fifth Beatle status, maybe fifteenth or so – Freda Kelly, Beatles fan club president and secretary to Brian Epstein. 

There are photos of Freda to be sure – family photos of a girl who lost her mother at a young age, the teen who went to work in a typing pool but snuck out at lunch to the Cavern Club, the girl sorting through sacks of fan mail, and standing on the edges of Beatles’ events – all with the same cheeky smile intact.  It’s easy to put these in between the more familiar images and give us a chronology of the band’s rise and fall, though those without a good knowledge of Beatles’ history (should they accidentally stumble into this movie) might be a bit confused. I know you divided the film into different years of the sixties, but Freda, a good storyteller, does jump around a bit in her telling, and it would be wrong of the film not to follow her. Fortunately you have the Beatles’ music itself to move the film along at a good clip.

 The difficulty in thinking of this film as a story of The Beatles is that Freda wasn’t there for the moments we know best – the tours or the recording sessions or the arguments – what’s more, decades later she’s still refusing to gossip or even to choose a favourite Beatle.  Instead Freda’s story becomes one of loyalty, and of the nature of fandom.  She considers herself a fan first and foremost, and this has made her sympathetic to the fan club members she dealt with – answering their letters and trying to honour their requests, be it for autographs or hair, even bringing Ringo’s mother a pillowcase for him to sleep on and then send back to a lucky fan. 

Hearing about how she replied to these letters, and enlisted The Beatles’ parents to help out, creates a picture of a time very different from now with our carefully packaged celebrities.  Freda herself comes through as a dedicated and honest person, qualities that survived the tumultuous times she was in and difficulties in her own life.  She remains steadfast in her refusal to cash in or tell-all, valuing privacy – her own and the band’s – above all else.

It must have hurt, as filmmaker, to find out that she gave away all but four boxes of her memorabilia and photos.  But Freda doesn’t seem fussed about the small fortune she likely lost out on – everything went to fans she knew would appreciate them.  Good Ol’ Freda must have been long editing process for you, Helen, having to look for the people on the edges of the photographs and wonder who they were and what their stories were, but it certainly was a worthwhile one.

Erin

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

You’re Next

Dear Mads Heldtberg, Composer

Thank you for your sense of humour. Considering this movie frustrated me with a lot of unanswered questions, at least your film score was right up my alley. Punched up in the right spots to create suspense. Dark when it needed to be to invoke some fear. But more importantly, you weren’t afraid of using a little levity with the addition of some clever music to help hold the pieces together for such a thinly told story. 

I quite enjoyed the soundtrack that is cued by the first encounter with the animals.  A little pre-story, if you will, of a man (neighbour of the Davison’s that we’re about to meet) and his young lover, which ends with the threat (and title) You’re Next scrawled on the wall.  And, weren’t you lucky that your director was able to get the rights to “Looking For The Magic” by the Dwight Twilley Band.  You used it very effectively to keep bringing us back to that first, seemingly random, murder scene.  Then you really ramped it up with the family dinner, the first of many unfortunate accidents, and all the bloodshed that ensued.  Thanks to you and your creative score, I kept my head in the game.  You held my interest, and kept me caring about the characters and story — however one dimensional everything was in the end.

And, all this despite You’re Next feeling like a story I’d seen before; the random home invasion, the masked men, the ultraviolence, the dark humour, etc.  It felt a little like Strangers, but with a higher fun and slasher factor.  If it weren’t for my love of this genre – and your self-aware score –  I probably would have been bored to tears.

However, walking out of the theatre after You’re Next, I was left with some burning questions, or at least that feeling of nodding along to a catchy pop song with lyrics that don’t quite make sense.

I mean, who is the main character of this story?   I get that Crispian made the big decision, and certainly orchestrated everyone to visit the folks for dinner, but ultimately Erin is the one who decided to fight back against a mob of animal masked home invaders.  You’re Next really becomes her film in the end, whether that’s logical or not, it got the story told in a new way.

And, speaking of logic: What the hell is wrong with Crispian’s family anyway? And why were the bad guys so ill equipped to handle what boils down to essentially one able bodied woman? And more generally, when do you think it’s appropriate to tell your partner about your past?  Especially an interesting past, full of great adventure stories? One that would equip a woman to handle herself in any situation…

I’m getting off track, aren’t I? How about you just tell me what soundtrack I could use to get into Erin’s fighting shape. Because, damn.

Anyway, thanks for the laughs. I’ll take clever where I can get it, and at least I got something unexpected out of this film.

Thanks,

Jennifer Mulligan 

Status: Standard Delivery (3/5)

The Sapphires

Dear Lisa Savage, Archive Researcher, 

The Sapphires very actively (and unsuccessfully) strives to find its place in history. And while this failure doesn’t necessarily rest on your shoulders, Lisa, the prominence throughout of your archival research (expressed through a lot of grainy footage, factoids and awkward narrative impositions) is a symptom of why the movie doesn’t work. 

It’s clear from the very start – before we even see a single frame – that the filmmakers are aspiring to be historically significant. The first thing we see is a series of titlecards. Long titlecards. Several sentences long. Which is too long. These titlecards explain that the aboriginal people of Australia were poorly treated by the government, and that one particularly egregious form of this mistreatment involved children being taken away from their families and put into residential schools. Awful stuff, yeah, and, totally relevant to something that happens later in the film—but that event is a matter tangential to the main narrative. When it occurs, all of this terrible factual stuff is clearly explained by the characters onscreen anyway.

I’m sure the sweet story at the heart of this movie is what compelled you to be a part of making it. We have these four aboriginal soul singers in late-60s Australia overcoming the odds to be part of some sort of underground USO cabaret show. Love blooms. Lessons are learned. It’s contrived and maybe a bit too familiar, but this is a formula flick, a genre picture: an inspired-by-true-events musical biopic. There are rules to follow, I’m cool with that. To tell you the truth, at moments I was totally into it. The same way you can lose yourself in the gut-deep simplicity of a three-chord song. It’s easy, it’s expected, but that’s what’s pleasant about it. You guys had me. But then you lost me. 

The film incessantly cuts away to archival footage or televised news reports conveniently demarcating where we are on the historical timeline. When the girls arrive in Vietnam, suddenly we’re looking at black-and-white 8-mm film of actual Vietnam, which makes the already sanitized story seem even more of a flimsy Hollywood façade. And bringing in footage surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King felt like a cheap way to impose a bit of historical gravitas.

All of the great historical stuff you dug up overwhelms everything fun and entertaining about the film. I’m not blaming you, Lisa. You had a job to do and you did it. But now that I’m thinking about it, The Sapphires suffers a bit from the aspirational issues that plagued Argo; like Ben Affleck’s movie, yours breaks the fourth wall, revealing, in the end credits, photos of the real-life Sapphires, along with those American Graffiti-style where-are-they-know freeze-frame summaries. Which is nice. But introducing these people into the world of the film (the same way you introduce all of these archival bits and pieces) after the ridiculous sequence in which the Vietcong attack in the middle of performance, complete with an Alfonso Cuaron-like tracking shot and blown-up bodies flying through the frame like it’s a deleted scene from Olympus Has Fallen.

It’s a shame, because there were some pretty terrific moments. More genuine laughs than I expected. But also just as many diversions into awkward docudrama history lessons. And sometimes, utterly erroneous. I guarantee that there were no white soldiers in Vietnam so racists that they’d refuse to let a black doctor address their wounds. You probably knew that, too and should have let the screenwriter know. It’s a small detail, but in a movie that aspires to historical profundity, little details like that matter.

Sincerely,

Jared Young

Satus: Standard Delivery (2.5/5)