A slew of music-related movies premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, bringing rockers like the Edge, Tommy Lee and Neil Young into town. Metallica, who have a cameo in the black comedy The Darwin Awards, played a midnight set for sweaty celebs, and 1,200 fans packed into the local club Legacy Lodge to see the Beasties. And all three members of the famously fractious Police even threw back some shots together. Here's a breakdown of some of the musical documentaries jockeying for release.
Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That
Before a
2004 gig in New York, the Beastie Boys gave fifty Hi-8 cameras to fans and
mixed that live footage with some more high-end cameras to make this concert
film. "Eighty-five to ninety percent of what we used was shot by the
audience," says Beastie Boy Adam Yauch.
Everyone Stares: The
Police Inside and Out
As the Police rose from punk oddities to
rock juggernauts, drummer Stewart Copeland's Super-8 camera was rolling,
documenting daily life and intraband dynamics. "I hope it shows that this
thing about the Police fighting all the time is just not true," Copeland
says.
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
This tribute to
legendary singer-songwriter Cohen -- curiously, produced by Mel Gibson --
combines footage from a series of Cohen-themed concerts by Rufus Wainwright,
Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker and U2 alongside interviews with the man himself.
"I'm just in awe of his discipline and creative stamina," says the Edge. "I
thought we were dogged and relentless, but this guy is on another
level."
Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Jonathan Demme
captured Young's two-night stand at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in August,
a month before Young released Prairie Wind and five months after he
underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm. "Many of these songs were written
while Neil was waiting to do the corrective operation," says Demme. "This
stuff comes from a unique place in his soul and in his
life."
American Hardcore
Based on Steven Blush's book
of the same name, this doc chronicles the early days of punk's louder
angrier offshoot, with live footage of early-Eighties shows and interviews
with icons like Bad Brains and Black Flag. "Back then, if we weren't ignored
by mainstream publications, we were reported about in a negative context,"
says the Circle Jerks' Greg Heston. "Now everybody looks back to it as this
great explosion of musical ideas."