James Walsh Gypsy Live Le Musique Room Review
M ovies most musicians, whether biopics, fictions or documentaries, are a fixture in cinema, only judging by the flurry of action over the past 12 months – with acclaimed films nigh Aretha Franklin, Freddie Mercury and Elton John among others – we are in an uncommonly busy period, if not a flat-out golden age.
Good news for music fans, but fifty-fifty better news for the music manufacture, where these films represent an increasingly vital revenue stream in an era of slumped record sales, bumping a band's back catalogue and getting a new generation hooked on their piece of work.
There is, of course, far more to these movies than money-spinning: a good biopic or documentary can bring the songs to life, and illuminate the struggles of their creators. But what do musicians make of this lively cinematic category? We asked half dozen eminent songwriters – including a few who have scored movies, and others who have been the subject of movies – to each selection their five favourite music films.
Anna Calvi
Born in 1980 to an English mother and Italian begetter, Anna Calvi grew upwardly in Twickenham and studied music at Southampton University, specialising in violin and guitar. Her eponymous debut album, released in 2011, was nominated for a Mercury prize, as were her 2013 follow-up, I Breath, and her latest album, Hunter: "A serious-minded collection of pop songs about desire… [that] recalls the films of Douglas Sirk," said the Guardian in a 5-star review. Calvi recorded a runway for the 2015 sci-fi pic Insurgent and has scored the new season of Peaky Blinders.
Walk the Line
( Drama; James Mangold, 2005 )
I watched this film almost Johnny Cash's early life and career before I was signed, and it gave me my first taste of what touring might be like. I remember thinking: ah, OK, that'southward what to await – driving effectually in corking cars, hanging out with actually famous singers and watching Elvis backstage. Sadly, touring for me is more about hanging out in a dressing room for hours and having cold passenger food for dinner – non quite as glamorous. But this is a great film, and Joaquin Phoenix is actually well cast as Cash – he's got this bad-guy matter about him and seems a bit dangerous. And the songs are timeless.
Amy
( Documentary; Asif Kapadia, 2015 )
Such a devastating and beautiful film. Information technology'due south interesting to run into Amy Winehouse as a young daughter with raw talent, and watch how, like a moving ridge, she goes up and upwardly and up and then crashes. Equally a viewer, you experience almost guilty to exist watching her – she was watched enough – but this is a respectful portrait and I like that it celebrates her music. A lot of the time, in films virtually female artists, they only focus on the tragedy of their emotional lives and not enough virtually how amazing their arts and crafts was – and with this movie you lot definitely become a sense of what an amazing vocalizer and songwriter she was. She was much more than someone with addiction problems: she was a atypical talent.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
( Drama; John Cameron Mitchell, 2001 )
This is near an E German language singer who has a botched sexual practice-modify performance and is left with an "angry inch" of mankind between her legs. Moving to the US, she gets involved with another singer, who steals her songs and becomes famous, while Hedwig, played by the director John Cameron Mitchell, ends upwards playing in a concatenation of seafood restaurants called Bilgewater's. It's a beautiful film that touches on Greek mythology and the origins of love, as well equally gender identity. It's a lot of fun too – a comedy with a serious message. And the songs are great.
The Doors
( Drama; Oliver Stone, 1991 )
I remember watching this, stoned, while at academy, and I think you kind of have to be stoned to sentry it, because it's so psychedelic and weird. I've always had a fascination with Jim Morrison and regularly I ask myself: "What would a female person Jim Morrison do in this moment?", because I similar his commitment to the moment as a performer, and his shameless expression of his sexuality, which, as a adult female, I think is a squeamish thing to exploit. I don't know how I would experience watching this film now, not being stoned, simply at the time it seemed like a really romantic portrayal of a poetic artist.
Whiplash
( Drama; Damien Chazelle, 2014 )
This is about what a music student who actually wants to exist great has to sacrifice to pursue greatness. Information technology reminded me a little of my ain experience at academy, and how there'southward such a difference between studying music, which is quite sterile, and then actually going out and doing it. You lot have to unlearn everything and just endeavour to exist honest, using your instrument to speak in a way that people can empathise.
Andrew's (Miles Teller) human relationship with his music teacher in the film is very extreme, only I had music teachers at school who I felt really passionate about and who I wanted to go better for, so they would believe in me.
Neil Tennant
Neil Tennant co-founded the synth-popular duo Pet Store Boys with Chris Lowe in London in 1981 and went on to sell more than than 100m records worldwide, including the hits West End Girls and Always on My Mind. The duo accept released 13 studio albums, with videos directed by Derek Jarman, Bruce Weber, Wolfgang Tillmans and Martin Parr. Their latest EP, Agenda, came out in February. They headline Radio ii Alive in Hyde Park on 15 September.
The Young Ones
( Drama; Sidney J Furie, 1961 )
A group of teenagers, led by Cliff Richard, rally together to stop a theatre being demolished. They succeed by putting on a evidence there. The Young Ones is a gorgeous fantasy, then optimistic and beautiful, most the potential of pop music for immature people. It fabricated me desire to join a youth theatre, which I did a few years later, and it introduced the six-year-former me to the thrill of both pop music and theatre. They're still thrilling me today.
Cracked Actor
( Documentary; Alan Yentob, 1975 )
As a huge David Bowie fan who was at the concluding Ziggy Stardust gig – when he said he was quitting, I think turning circular to my friend and maxim, "Equally if!" – this BBC documentary from a couple of years later felt very special. And very new. Information technology's the document of Bowie in America, and gets you then close. He'due south so vulnerable, sniffing – obviously taking cocaine – and looks like an alien; but when talking Alan Yentob through his sometime tour outfits, he's withal something of a chirpy cockney lad.
The film besides shows the sharpness and originality of his musical mind, especially when he's directing his amazing bankroll singers through their parts. It'south fascinating to see him at piece of work as a musician.
Cabaret
( Drama; Bob Fosse, 1972 )
The story of singer Emerge Bowles in the Weimar Democracy, which came out late in 1972, into a very dreary Britain. I think of it every bit a glam-stone document, really: all those fantastic songs, confined to the stage, plus the brilliant makeup, in this frightening city. The notion of "divine decadence" was very intriguing when you were an 18-twelvemonth-one-time student from Newcastle, recently arrived in London. It also had an impact on punk – look at Siouxsie Sioux: plainly influenced by Liza Minnelli. My friends and I would mind to the soundtrack in our Tottenham educatee flat, back-to-dorsum with Lou Reed'southward Transformer and Roxy Music's second album. It had the same impact.
Song of Summer
( Drama; Ken Russell, 1968 )
This was a BBC Coach drama nearly a young composer from Yorkshire, Eric Fenby, in the late 1920s. He reads that the composer Delius, also from Yorkshire, is now blind, partly paralysed and can no longer compose, with work left unfinished. Fenby manages to help him deliver those last works.
It'southward an elegiac flick nigh the painful process of creating music and the end of a creative life. It's very emotional, unsettling and moving. Delius is an incredibly tragic figure, both fragile and fell. Russell was brilliant at creating images to accompany music.
The Wrecking Crew!
( Documentary; Denny Tedesco, 2008 )
A film nearly this boggling, charming, unegotistical grouping of LA session musicians in the 60s and early 70s who played on everything, and didn't publicly go proper credit. They made Phil Spector'southward Wall of Sound, they played the backing tracks for the Embankment Boys, they're on Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin' and Glenn Campbell's Wichita Lineman (with Carol Kaye'due south bassline). Y'all realise all these records have a audio, and the audio is this ring.
I wanted u.s.a. to go to LA to brand an album [2012's Elysium] and record in Capitol Studios because of this movie. It'south ane of the best films I've always seen about the process of making pop music.
Nadine Shah
Built-in in South Tyneside to a Pakistani father and an English female parent of Norwegian heritage, Nadine Shah has recorded 3 albums over the past half dozen years, including Love Your Dum and Mad (2013) and Holiday Destination, which was nominated for a Mercury prize in 2018. The 33-year-old is currently recording a new album and plays the Legitimate Peaky Blinders festival in Digbeth, Birmingham on 14 September.
xx,000 Days on Globe
( Documentary; Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, 2014 )
When y'all've got a favourite artist, you desire to know everything nigh them, from their favourite colour to what they have for breakfast, and you go that with this Nick Cave documentary. It's clear how every detail has been advisedly and thoughtfully curated by him. I love the glimpse into the friendship between him and Warren Ellis when they're discussing the time they met Nina Simone, and she said what she wanted to have after her gig: "I want champagne, cocaine and sausages!" They look similar little boys when telling the story. It'south a beautiful insight into their world outside of music-making.
What Happened, Miss Simone?
( Documentary; Liz Garbus, 2015 )
A actually definitive flick well-nigh an incredible woman. She'southward mint – the terminate! Simply seriously: I'm obsessed with the model Nina Simone set out for women. She allowed united states to sing in lower, stranger registers. She made politics a cardinal role of her art. She was uncompromising. The way her daughter leads her story in this moving picture besides gives it a actually special perspective. You lot can't help but feel humble earlier her.
Lilliputian Phonation
( Drama; Marker Herman, 1998 )
A film that absolutely nails the experience of really wanting to perform – that feeling that you're weird to exercise so when you're not being encouraged – and of music being a bright grade of escape. Fifty-fifty though I'm not working-course, the story described a world and an attitude to women I knew well.
It's also nearly finding your identity through music, how you can find your own vocalisation through singing other people's songs. I used to do that myself as a child, trying to become Tina Turner by singing Private Dancer!
Scott Walker: thirty Century Man
( Documentary; Stephen Kijak, 2006 )
Years ago, I went to run across this documentary with a friend, not knowing who Scott Walker was. When I came out of the picture palace he was my new favourite creative person. I'm absolutely not kidding! It was made at the time he made [2006 album] The Drift, and it sets out how he moved his career abroad from his early years, on his own terms. If you lot oasis't seen it, I swear you lot'll exist wanting to punch a piece of meat for percussion, as he does on Clara, past the end of it. It'due south that proficient.
Vox Lux
( Drama; Brady Corbet, 2018 )
Natalie Portman plays a immature teenage popular creative person, Celeste, who starts making music later on surviving a schoolhouse shooting. Then it becomes a film nigh what the pop manufacture can exercise to people, what not to do within it, and about messiah complexes. It's a really over-the-top, sinister film – information technology becomes most conflicting. But it also reminds you to keep your ego in check, pull your baseball game cap downwards, don't get lost in the madness, and just proceed working.
Wayne Coyne
Wayne Coyne is the pb vocalizer of the Flaming Lips, which he founded in 1983. The band has released 15 studio albums, including At War With the Mystics, which won ii Grammy awards in 2006. In 2005 he appeared in a documentary well-nigh the Flaming Lips chosen The Fearless Freaks, and three years later released his ain sci-fi feature pic, Christmas on Mars. Built-in in Pittsburgh in 1961, Coyne grew up in Oklahoma City, where he now lives with his wife and baby son.
Pinkish Floyd: Alive At Pompeii
( Documentary; Adrian Maben, 1972 )
This pic changed my life. I wouldn't have known information technology existed if I hadn't gone to see a terrible Don Johnson motion picture, A Boy and His Dog , in a double bill with my brother. We'd meet anything in Oklahoma Urban center to pass the fourth dimension, and we were the only kids in the theatre, smoking a joint. Then the second film came on.
I hadn't known this menstruum of Pink Floyd. Information technology opened up a new world of music to me.
I was sixteen, wanting to be a rock star, and they actually talked about how they made their songs. I went out and bought a Stratocaster like Dave Gilmour's presently after. I still can't believe I had the luck to encounter it.
Cocksucker Dejection
(Documentary; Robert Frank, 1972)
This unreleased Rolling Stones documentary was a movie yous'd ever hear about but know yous'd never, e'er meet. Now I can watch it online anywhere within seconds. It's better than yous remember. It shows simply how insane their lives were while they were making some of their best music, in hotel rooms doing drugs, with all this weird shit going on. People who run across them in stadiums now wouldn't relate to those characters, but this proves they were ever phenomenal, even in their craziest hours.
Woodstock
(Documentary; Michael Wadleigh, 1970)
By contrast, everyone had seen Woodstock: this movie played and played. I saw information technology late, expecting to just sentry this bunch of weird hippies rolling around and Jimi Hendrix popping upward at the end. Simply the performances were great: this turned me on to the Who, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker. The editing was so ahead of its fourth dimension, so dynamic. Woodstock actually made people realise that music isn't simply nearly hearing information technology: it's about seeing it, and getting more of the personalities behind it. About getting more of everything.
The Kids Are Alright
(Documentary; Jeff Stein, 1979)
More than any other band, the Who put that thing in me that made me who I am now, and this documentary told their story in a mode that really zapped me. That connectedness you run across between Pete Townshend and Keith Moon: yous rarely see people get so possessed by their music, their free energy and connection to each other. Then there's Roger Daltrey being this flawless singer, an angel, in the chaos of information technology all.
This documentary shows how much of the band'due south exuberance is in their music, and when we're watching their performances existence constructed, I don't see them being fakes – I see them making art out of their imaginations.
Urgh! A Music War
(Live music compilation; Derek Burbidge, 1982)
Oklahoma City was a test city for MTV, and this compilation of US and UK punk stone bands – XTC, the Cramps, the Dead Kennedys – came out around the time, and had that same spirit. One song each, blam-blam-blam. Yous didn't know who was American and who was English and it didn't matter – what did was every ring was doing it themselves and looking bizarre.
And in a world where you knew you could never be the Beatles, here was John Cooper Clarke performing to l people and being fantastic. That felt huge. Seeing the energy coming off the audience when he made that effort really did something to me.
Nitin Sawhney
A musician and composer, Nitin Sawhney was born in London in 1964 and raised in Kent by parents who had emigrated from Punjab. He started every bit a comedy writer, working with Sanjeev Bhaskar on a sketch show that would eventually become Goodness Gracious Me. He has released 11 solo albums, including 1999 breakthrough Across Skin, and collaborated with Paul McCartney, Akram Khan and the London Symphony Orchestra. Sawhney has scored Telly programmes, figurer games and more than than 50 films, including Mira Nair'south The Namesake (2006).
Command
( Drama; Anton Corbijn, 200 seven )
An incredibly bold portrait of Ian Curtis's life, which manages to accept his story away from mythology really convincingly. You're shown a boyfriend trying to rest life in music and his illness with a domestic existence, and the performances of Sam Riley as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his married woman, Deborah, are very powerful.
I wasn't a huge Joy Division fan when they were around – I was studying nearby in Liverpool – but this film absolutely captures the mood of that time, equally does the blackness-and-white cinematography. It likewise nails that struggle of existence an artist and a homo being. That isn't captured enough.
Latcho Drom
( Documentary; 1993, Tony Gatlif )
This film traces the evolution of flamenco, from its origins in Bharat through Egypt, through eastern Europe to the west – "latcho drom" means rubber journey. The director is Romany himself, and at that place's no narrator, so the story is told through song and subtitles with no contrivance at all. You feel properly immersed in new worlds as a upshot – I play flamenco, and you feel the echoes of ancient traditions in it, only this is something else. The most powerful scene is of 3 women singing on a hilltop most how they've been disenfranchised. It'south unbelievably moving.
Searching for Carbohydrate Man
( Documentary; Malik Bendjelloul, 2012 )
A superb documentary near the once fiddling-known American singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, and his huge popularity in South Africa, which starts with a rumour virtually him killing himself by setting fire to himself on stage. His real story then reveals itself to be very different.
This film delves into mythology, how information technology develops, and the mode nosotros elevate musicians as beacons in culture. Information technology's likewise a film about an incredibly underrated guy, and how difficult it was to find lost stars before the internet took off. Information technology couldn't happen at present.
This Is Spinal Tap
( Comedy; Rob Reiner, 1984 )
I've played in heavy rock bands, funk bands, jazz bands, and this motion picture captures the hilarious madness of touring life: the egos of musicians and managers, the pedantry behind getting the right things on riders, the bathos behind big epic concerts… I got lost in a labyrinth of corridors before getting to the stage once, just like Spinal Tap!
This remains a tour coach favourite because of the attention to detail, specially in the actors' performances. I couldn't believe it when I realised that Michael McKean from Ameliorate Call Saul was the guy who played David St Hubbins. Just of course he was. He was ever that good.
Bird
( Drama; Clint Eastwood, 1988 )
A beautiful film about Charlie Parker, played brilliantly past Forest Whitaker, and directed by an histrion who's plain a big jazz fan. Bird actually shows you how ludicrously gifted Parker was, how his mind worked on a completely different level, simply as well how much he got lost in self-loathing, and how addiction made everything fall apart. Parker was 34 when he died, merely the coroner idea he was lx, looking at his body. By getting into the New York guild scene and looking at aspects of racism, this movie also shows merely how much Parker accomplished, given everything he was fighting against.
Anna Meredith
Anna Meredith was born in London in 1978 and grew up outside Edinburgh. She studied music at York Academy and the Regal Higher of Music and spent several years as composer in residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Her debut album, Varmints, won the Scottish album of the year award in 2016. Last twelvemonth she recorded the soundtrack for Eighth Form, and her music was used in the films Dheepan (2015) and The Favourite (2018). Meredith's new album, Fibs, will be released on 25 October.
Homecoming: A Picture show by Beyoncé
( Documentary; Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Ed Burke, 2019 )
Homecoming tells the story behind Beyoncé's 2018 Coachella show, which makes a huge statement well-nigh the importance of African American teaching and the college experience. It cuts through the idea of pop stars just arriving into culture, being presented to the earth every bit if they're just naturally talented and what they do is absolutely no effort.
Beyoncé works and so hard! She'southward on top of every detail – the choreography, the costumes, the lighting, the staging – and information technology'south and then great seeing a woman so much in charge of her ideas. It makes yous want to piece of work harder.
The Making of West Side Story
( Documentary; Christopher Swann, 1985 )
This documentary is about the Leonard Bernstein-conducted recording of the score in the 80s, with Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras. That soundtrack was a staple at dwelling house when I was growing up – nosotros had this glossy, massive iv-cassette tape box of it.
Bernstein is such an interesting person: temperamental, feisty, impatient, funny, smoking cigarettes in his red polo neck. And to see him conduct his music – this incredible, ambitious, interesting, crazy, heartbreaking music, which is never schmaltzy, but crunchy and angsty, and then with these moments of release – is really amazing.
George Michael: Freedom
( Documentary; David Austin & George Michael , 2017)
This was made before George died and released shortly after, so y'all tin't watch it without a lump in your throat. He'due south such a brilliant musician, an effortless singer, but also merely an ordinary, interesting guy with a natural gift.
I used to have this unhealthy habit of playing his songs when I was drunk and maudlin. I dearest how this motion picture shows how he took control of his epitome early on, and how nosotros see the lyrics to Liberty equally existence so acute, not vacuous at all. He's also funny and filthy – the kind of person you'd love to accept a drink with. It'south so sad that he'southward not here.
A Mighty Wind
( Comedy; Christopher Guest, 2003 )
A great mockumentary about a reunion of three folk bands that's gently observed but too spot-on. I dearest how it quietly gets behind the scenes into the bluffing and the jealousy that leads up to their reunion concert, and I especially love the attitudes towards the shiny sellouts. The characters are so well done, as well – the troubled former couple, the old-school trio, the Folksmen – but not every moment is mined for gags, which is what makes it piece of work. You tin tell everyone taking part genuinely loves music, and that's why Christopher Guest e'er gets it right.
Queen: Days of Our Lives
( Documentary; Matt O'Casey, 2011 )
I was a teenager when I got into Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody was everywhere subsequently it was on Wayne's Globe. In that location's so much joy in their music, a existent not-giving-a shit-ness. It's slap-up to meet them in this documentary being these normal, geeky people. You encounter all the mundanity that goes on behind the scenes of Freddie'south showmanship on stage, plus there's the unexpectedness of hearing his gentle English accent. And so you lot hear him live, and see the sweat in his moustache, and it'south spine-tingling.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/18/the-best-films-about-music-chosen-by-musicians-documentaries-concert-films-biopics
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