Maybe there should just be a category in the right column for "Lists." Here's one from the film and music writers of Time Out London (which will always be the only real Time Out) called "50 greatest music films ever except for 'Spinal Tap'." No, I added those last four words, but the editors explain in their intro that "we’re celebrating great films – dramas and documentaries – about real musicians."
As if David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls never actually toured in the flesh? As if they aren't at least as "real" as, say, KISS or the Monkees or Hootie and the Blowfish, which contained no one named "Hootie" and nobody named "Blowfish." (BTW, the Ramones weren't really "Ramones"! Those were just stage names!) Oh, and Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" was about a guy named "Blake." Michael Pitt looked like Kurt Cobain, but it was only about Cobain in the sense that "Velvet Goldmine" is about Bowie or Iggy Pop or Lou Reed, or "Grace of My Heart" is about Carole King or Brian Wilson or any of the Brill Building writers (even though a lot of them wrote songs for the movie). Then there's "'Round Midnight" (which is on the list) with Dexter Gordon playing Dale Turner, a fictionalized version of Bud Powell...
View image Downey, CA: "What happened?" Third shot of "Superstar." Compare to second shot of "Zodiac" -- establishing a neighborhood, from a car on the street...
So, OK: No "Spinal Tap." But no "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco"? No "You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson"? No "Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser"? No "X: The Unheard Music"? No "The Girl Can't Help It"? No "Wattstax"? No "Woodstock"? No "The Kids are Alright"? No "No Direction Home"? No "The Buddy Holly Story"? No "Theramin: An Electronic Odyssey"? No "Heart of Gold"? No "The Filth and the Fury"? No "We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen"? No "La Bamba"? No "Kurt and Courtney"? See how much fun this is? Really, though, I'd substitute any of these for several of the selections on the list.
But, OK, many of my favorites are included: "24 Hour Party People," "Jazz on a Summer's Day," "Stop Making Sense," "DIG!," "Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor" (his autobiography, "Straight Life," is the best account of addiction I've ever read), "The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I and II (The Metal Years)"...
At the toppermost of the poppermost: Todd Haynes' 1987 "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," a 45-minute lo-fi "dramatization" that was never officially released because of music clearance troubles (that is, brother Richard wouldn't let Haynes use any Carpenters tunes). Still, after 20 years as an "underground" item, it's available from Google Video here. It's something you really need to see: a documentary-style biopic of Karen Carpenter performed mostly by Barbie dolls. Yes, its a parody (so are most musical biopics, including others on the list -- see the upcoming Jake Kasdan/Judd Apatow picture, "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" for more on that score). But it presents straightforward facts about anorexia that could have been excerpted from any PBS or 16mm educational doc of the period. It's also a formula showbiz melodrama. But for all the layers of artifice, like Haynes' Sirk opera "Far From Heaven," it becomes strangely, hypnotically -- and genuinely -- moving. Prepare yourself for Haynes' Dylan fantasia, "I'm Not There," by watching "Superstar" and "Velvet Goldmine."
ASIDE: From an interview with Haynes at The Reeler:
I actually think that it's easier for people who know less about Dylan to go with it, if they're up for something different. Clearly, that's the first thing: Whether you know Dylan or not, you have to surrender to the movie to have a good time at all and get anything out of it. If you have a lot of Dylanisms in your head, it's kind of distracting, because you're sitting there with a whole second movie going on. You're annotating it as you go. It's kind of nice to sit back and let it take you. I think people get it: Even if you don't know which are the true facts and which are the fictional things, and when we're playing with fact and fiction, from the tone of it, you know that it's playing around with real life. In a way, that's what biopics always do. They just don't tell you that they're doing it, and they don't make it part of the fun. You have to follow the Johnny Cash story and just sort of think, "This is what really happened." Of course, you know it's being dramatized, but you're not in on the joke. You're not in on the game of that. In this movie, at least, you get tipped off to it.Oh yeah, but about that list. Here it is. Make of it what you will:
1 "Superstar: the Karen Carpenter Story" (Todd Haynes, 1987)
2 "Don't Look Back" (DA Pennebaker, 1967) -- Bob Dylan
3 "Gimme Shelter" (David Maysles/Albert Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin, 1970) --Rolling Stones
4 "24 Hour Party People" (Michael Winterbottom, 2002) -- Manchester scene
5 "Topsy-Turvy" (Mike Leigh, 1999) -- Gilbert and Sullivan
6 "Monterey Pop" (DA Pennebaker, 1968) -- concert
7 "Be Here to Love Me" (Margaret Brown, 2004) -- Townes Van Zandt
8 "Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould" (Francois Girard, 1993) -- Glenn Gould
9 "Cocksucker Blues" (Robert Frank, 1972) -- Rolling Stones
10 "Bird" (Clint Eastwood, 1988) -- Charlie Parker
11 "The Last Waltz" (Martin Scorsese, 1978) -- The Band & Friends farewell concert
12 "Rude Boy" (Jack Hazan, David Mingay, 1980) -- The Clash
13 "Scott Walker: 30 Century Man" (Stephen Kijak, 2006) -- Scott Walker
14 "Bound for Glory" (Hal Ashby, 1976) -- Woody Guthrie
15 "The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I & II" (Penelope Spheeris, 1981, 1988) -- LA punk; '80s metal & hair bands
16 "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" (Jeff Feuerzeig, 2005) -- Daniel Johnston
17 "Sweet Dreams" (Karel Reisz, 1982) -- Patsy Cline
18 "Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor" (Don McGlynn, 1982) -- Art Pepper
19 "Elgar" (Ken Russell, 1962) -- Edward Elgar
20 "Rust Never Sleeps" (Neil Young, 1979) -- Neil Young
21 "The Future is Unwritten" (Julien Temple, 2006) -- Joe Strummer
22 "DiG!" (Ondi Timoner, 2004) -- Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dandy Warhols
23 "Some Kind Of Monster" (Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky, 2004) -- Metallica
24 "A Hard Day's Night" (Richard Lester, 1964) -- The Beatles
25 "Jimi Hendrix" (Joe Boyd, 1973) -- Jimi Hendrix
(more)
26 "Sid and Nancy" (Alex Cox, 1986) -- Sid Vicious, The Sex Pistols
27 "Elvis" (John Carpenter, 1979) -- Elvis Presley
28 "The Last of the Blue Devils" (Bruce Ricker, 1980) -- Kansas City jazz
29 "Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed" (Hasan Shah & Dom Shaw, 1981) -- Brit post-punk (late '70s, early '80s)
30 "Amadeus" (Milos Forman, 1984) -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
31 "Stop Making Sense" (Jonathan Demme, 1984) -- Talking Heads
32 "Charlie is My Darling" (Peter Whitehead, 1966) -- Rolling Stones
33 "Magic Fire" (William Dieterle, 1955) -- Richard Wagner
34 "Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise" (Robert Mugge, 1980) -- Sun Ra
35 "Coal Miner’s Daughter" (Michael Apted, 1980) -- Loretta Lynn
36 "Last Days" (Gus Van Sant, 2006) -- Blake (a version of Kurt Cobain)
37 "Wonderful Life" (Sidney J Furie, 1964) -- Cliff Richard as Johnnie, in the equivalent of an Elvis vehicle
38 "'Round Midnight" (Bertrand Tavernier, 1986) -- Dale Turner (a version of Bud Powell played by Dexter Gordon)
39 "Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid" (Gimpo, 1995) -- The KLF (who are filmed burning a million pounds in £50 notes)
40 "The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach" (Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, 1968) -- Johann Sebastian Bach
41 "Buena Vista Social Club" (Wim Wenders, 1999) -- Cuban musicians performing as the Buena Vista Social Club
42 "Soul to Soul" (Dennis Sanders, 1971) -- concert in Ghana with Mavis Staples, Roberta Flack, Les McCann, Wilson Pickett, Carlos Santana, Ike & Tina Turner
43 "Hilary and Jackie" (Anand Tucker, 1998) -- Hilary and Jackie du Pré
44 "Made in Sheffield" (Eve Wood, 2001) -- Sheffield scene
45 "Jazz on a Summer’s Day" (Bert Stern, 1959) -- Newport Jazz Festival, 1958
46 "So You Wanna Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star?" (Mark Kidel, 1976) -- the Kursaal Flyers
47 "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" (Aki Kaurismäki, 1989) -- the Leningrad Cowboys
48 "MC5: A True Testimonial" (David C Thomas, 2002) -- MC5
49 "Sign O’ The Times" (Prince, 1988) -- Prince
50 "Catch Us If You Can" (John Boorman, 1965) -- Dave Clark Five
(thanks to MCN for the tip)
Don't Look Back's inclusion over No Direction Home is the most glaring problem for me. Don't Look Back is an ok document of a great musician in a time of dickishness and drug abuse, as an insight into music, or even as a music film it doesn't quite work. There's not really all that much music in the film, and what of that there is is usually abridged. No Direction Home works both as a fascinating documentary, but also makes you live in Dylan's music, and connects the periods of his life with songs he was writing. You can learn a lot more about Dylan by hearing from describing his actions and behavior than actually seeing him behaving.
Glaring omission:
"Instrument" (Jem Cohen, 1998) -- Fugazi
Twenty years with one of the best and most important/influential/inspirational bands of the past twenty years. And a hell of a film, even if you don't. like. music. (someone once told me they don't)
correction RE: "Instrument":
make that "Ten years with..."
I cherish every list that features 24HPP so high up, but Fearless Freaks, the documentary about the Flaming Lips, should have been included.
What about Still Crazy, which had a quaint silliness unrivalled by any similar film apart from the inimitaple "Tap?"
And I don't want to go on about this like - forgive the simile - a broken record, but The Last Waltz is so pompous that I have to take a shower every time I catch even a glimpse of it on the telly.
Spot on description of Superstar--I was so happy to find it on Google Video earlier this year (I thought I'd never get to see it). Haynes is, easily, my favorite American director working today--cannot wait for I'm Not There.
And why no "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"? I mean, okay, it's incredibly corny and most of the performances go beyond histrionics into something else, but there's that moment with Nancy Allen in the Beatles's hotel room where she has an erotically charged incident with a guitar (I think). It perfectly captures the sexual allure of rock n roll; that minute or two is, like, the strictly hetero equivalent to Velvet Goldmine's sexuality. For that moment alone, I have rewatched the movie.
I read the list before reading Jim's commentary, so I was at first outraged at the exclusion of THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, and then grateful that Jim mentioned it SHOULD be on the list.
With Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps at #20, I'm surprised that neither Greendale nor Heart of Gold - better films, especially the former - made the list. And as for Sun Ra, where's Space Is the Place?
Thanks for the Superstar link, by the way.
This might be the worst list of anything, ever.
No "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music"?!?!? This list isn't worth the pixels it's printed on!!
Seriously, like all these lists, if nothing else it's good for discussion--or at least to get people watching and, in this case, listening.
JE: You're right, that Tom Dowd movie is fantastic!
Yeah, that list is k-rap. Apart from Some Kind Of Monster being a pleasantly surprising choice, there isn't much to get excited about here. Some of the omissions already mentioned are glaring, but The Last Waltz not being in the Top 10 is the worst snub of all. It's the best of these 50. To be #11 is kind of a slap in the face of #11s on other Best Of lists that DESERVE to be #11. The Last Waltz is 10 spots too low.
WHen I first scanned the list, I thought maybe they weren't counting comedie because obviously "A Hard Day's Night" would be #1 but there it is smack in the middle - I think it's one of the 7 or 8 greatest movies of any kind ever made, so I'd obviously place it a wee bit higher on the list. I'd put "Help!" on the list too.
However, it's great to see Superstar so high. This is really a powerful movie. Just reading the description, you might expect it to be kitschy or smug or at least in some way ironic, but it is deeply heartfelt, and one of a handful of movies that move me to tears every time I watch it.
I also agree with Jim about "Theremin." Even more so, I think there needs to be at least ONE (if not more) Les Blank films in the mix here:I'd pick "In Heaven There is no Beer?" but almost of his films about zydeco music would be a perfect choice.
From the snooty art-house rack, I'd have to choose Sraub/Huillet's tour-de-force "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach."
And I'm a big fan of the documentary "Touch the Sound" about deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
I vaguely recall the "Jimi Hendrix" documentary being fairly mediocre, doing a poor job of portraying the man's gargantuan genius. I believe most of the footage is available elsewhere now, making the film redundant as well.
"Bird" I also dislike, although not violently, especially since Eastwood and Whitaker have done so much better work.
I'm gladdened to find a fellow "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" fan -- I pop out that DVD to sanctify the day of every new Wilco release. Also, the omission of "The Kids Are All Right" is especially egregious since it contains the stupefyingly awesome performance of "A Quick One While He's Away" from that Rolling Stones Circus-or-whatever special. Alien life forms shall discover this footage and worship humanity as gods.
"Urgh! A Music War" maybe can't crack the top 50, but should at least be a runner-up as a time-capsule of 80s hair.
Yeah, no "Spinal Tap" kind of invalidates this list.
Agreed with Christopher Long that "A Hard Day's Night" should be near (or at) the top.
If they're including "Amadeus" and "Coal Miner's Daughter," I wonder if they should include other musical biographies, even if their facts may have been, er, questionable, such as "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
The Glenn Gould film is amazing and led to a great Simpsons take-off and I'm with N. Farias on the Wilco flick. I would watch anything about them but there has never been a documentary about the making of an album like that one. It's excrutiatingly fascinating. I would also put "The Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus" up there. The Who play better than I've ever heard them and as weird as the gimmick is, the completely stoned unintelligibilty doesn't detract from anybody's playing. Of course Yoko's there so take that however you will.
In response to Derek's comment: I once knew someone who said she didn't like art.
Oops, I didn't notice the list already included "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach." I like this list more now!
I wish I could think of a really great punk rock film, but I can't come up with a no doubt "great" one. I enjoyed "New York Doll" quite a bit, but it wasn't a great _music_ film. "End of the Century" was a fine take on the Ramones, but not an all-time great.
Surely everyone loves "Head," don't they? Strring the MOnkees, co-written by Jack Nicholson. Annette Funicello and "Head" - a perfect combination.
Has anyone else seen "The Nomi Song"? I don't know that I'd call it great, but it's pretty darned memorable.
And surely one Zappa outing deserves enshrinement. Maybe "Does Humor Belong in Music?"
No "Great Rock n Roll Swindle"? Another swindle.
Jandek on Corwood
Bruce MacDonald's "Hard Core Logo" is the BEST movie ever made about rock and roll. As a musician who has spent my share of time on the inside of a van, I can honestly say it is the most realistic portrayal of a "working" (ie, struggling) rock band.
What about "The Filth and the Fury"? Not only is it noteworthy for having actual thoughtful, sincere commentary from all of the original Sex Pistols (remember, Sid was not the original bass player), the cut and paste style of the film really imitates what the first generation of punk rock was about. You get to see the connections between Richard II, the Bay City Rollers, and Johnny Rotten. Baddass.
The best thing about the list is that "Be Here To Love Me" is so highly ranked. That's maybe the best music bio I've seen. Watch it once and you'll understand an awful lot about Townes Van Zant.
I'd like to second a couple of comments other folks have made. "No Direction Home" is certainly much better, both in terms of cinema (Scorsese knows how to tell a story), and in terms of letting us get a little bit closer to Dylan. "Don't Look Back" is an interesting document of its time, but it doesn't really tell us much about Dylan's personality (except that he has a tendancy to get bit fed up the press) or his music. It's also a bit dull. And "Instrument" IS a really great movie that really ought to be on the list. It's completely mesmerizing. Fugazi rules also.
There are some genuine dogs on the list. Sid and Nancy is a bad film about an even worse musician. It has a cult following howevever so I can sort of understand what it's doing here. Hillary and Jackie on the other hand is just plain bad and was mostly forgotten until this list came along.
The one thing I do like about this list is the love for Topsy Turvy. It's a film that I would have probably forgotten to include when making a list like this because it is so much more then merely a film about music and so much better then most films let alone those about music.
I am reminded of the great Gouldman. He wrote songs for many groups, including the Yardbirds and was a member of 1OCC. Thanking you, please!
Was The Doors really not that good? It could have been my youth or things associated with youth, but I thought it was good.
I'll say this about The Doors: Val Kilmer's Morrison was uncanny.
I went back to the above list this morning, and realised Almost Famous also did not make the cut. Because it is about a "fake" band called Stillwater, I suppose... Clever.
No, "The Doors" really wasn't good. Val Kilmer was pretty uncanny in it, but it wasn't much of a movie. Although it is a nice little treatise for those of us who think the Doors were pretentious and goofy band. I'll grant that they had flashes of brilliance every now and then, but the dominant impression that Jim Morrison makes on most of his records-- and all of the films I've ever seen of the band onstage-- is his tremendous contempt for his audience. They have to be the most overrated band in the classic rock cannon. I get the "mixing poetry with rock" thing and all, but Jim Morrison just wasn't much of a writer. Try Patti Smith of Leonard Cohen for poetry in music(Another GREAT concert film not on the list.... the Leonard Cohen tribute "I'm Your Man." I guess it isn't terribly cinematic, but the perfomances are beautiful. Enough not to need any help.)
Actually, now that I think of it, Oliver Stone's very dull, pretentious movie really does capture something essential about the Doors.
Wow, that turned into a nasty little rant. Sorry about that. I just really don't like the Doors. I'll wrap it up by acknowledging that Val Kilmer really was quite good in the movie.
"Concert for Bangladesh"-- great music, great players
Another egregious (but not surprising) omission from the list: Lou Adler's scarily prescient satire of the riot grrl punk movement, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE FABULOUS STAINS.
I would compare "The Doors" to "Ray" and to a lesser extent "Walk the Line". Great acting performances in pretty mediocre films at least when you consider the cult like status of the subjects.
What, no "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"?