Films about music

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
not seen all scorsese's music docs, but i think his documentary work is pretty patchy. the last waltz was boring, but thats prob cos i thought the music was deathly dull, until muddy waters came on, and then dylan rescued it all at the end (and im not even a huge dylan fan). the most interesting parts were the interviews and dialogue between the band, but every time that got interesting, scorsese cut to another boring live performance. could be wrong as ive not seen shine a light, the dylan one, etc, but the problem i think is that his music docs seem his chance to show his reverence for his musical heroes.

anyone seen the oasis film from last year? (seriously)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've heard that Oasis doc is good. One of my friends is obsessed with Liam Gallagher videos on Youtube and I can see why, he is quite an entertaining knobhead.

Speaking of Oasis, I remember really liking 'Live Forever', more than I liked Britpop. (I'm just saying that to be cool cos the truth is I was about 10 years old and I bloody loved the Lightning Seeds in those days.)

Also '24 Hour Party People' is a good film IMO
 

droid

Well-known member
Some decent suggestions there, thanks. Will really have to check out that Gould film. 'Control' hasnt been mentioned has it? Cracked actor is another good one.

Biopics touch on it here and there, and you catch sideways glimpses in documentaries, but it but it is remarkable how few films explore the phenomenology of music.

Music. The breathing of statues. Perhaps:
The quiet of images. You, language where
languages end. You, time
standing straight from the direction
of transpiring hearts.

Feelings, for whom? O, you of the feelings
changing into what?— into an audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You chamber of our heart
which has outgrown us. Our inner most self,
transcending, squeezed out,—
holy farewell:
now that the interior surrounds us
the most practiced of distances, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
enormous
no longer habitable.​

Spectacular wrongness from Craner once again though. Unsurprising, but sad!
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy

Can the power of music make the brain come alive? Throughout his career Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and acclaimed author, whose book Awakenings was made into a Oscar-nominated feature film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, has encountered myriad patients who are struggling to cope with debilitating medical conditions. While their ailments vary, many have one thing in common: an appreciation for the therapeutic effects of music. NOVA follows four individuals—two of whom are Sacks's case studies—and even peers into Sacks's own brain, to investigate music's strange, surprising, and still unexplained power over the human mind.
 

droid

Well-known member

Can the power of music make the brain come alive? Throughout his career Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and acclaimed author, whose book Awakenings was made into a Oscar-nominated feature film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, has encountered myriad patients who are struggling to cope with debilitating medical conditions. While their ailments vary, many have one thing in common: an appreciation for the therapeutic effects of music. NOVA follows four individuals—two of whom are Sacks's case studies—and even peers into Sacks's own brain, to investigate music's strange, surprising, and still unexplained power over the human mind.

I was just thinking about Sacks there, definitely one of the few people to look closely at perception of music and the brain. His book is very good.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy

Haven't seen this but I read some positive reviews of it. Film about a group of friends in Paris DJing/putting on house music parties.
 

droid

Well-known member
Ok, the suspense is over. This is the greatest film ever made about music, and (possibly) my favourite film of all time.

...Sainte Colombe asks Marais if he finally understands the purpose of music. Marais naively says "God." He's wrong, because "God can speak." Sainte Colombe makes him try again, and Marais goes through an exhaustive list of guesses: love, the loss of love, silence, glory...But he still doesn't get it. Marais begins to well up, admitting he doesn't know. Maybe it's better left to the dead. Sainte Colombe lights up. "You're getting warmer."

This prompts Marais's epiphany: "A little tune for those who can't speak any longer. For lost children. For softening a shoemaker's hammer. For the time before we even lived or breathed or saw the light."

A remarkable meditation on, loss, grief & regret and the intangible power of music.


Presumably many of you have seen it? Its hardly obscure and was pretty big news back in the 90's.

Decent review here: http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/the-things-we-never-said-any-differently
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
i just watched Miles Ahead this week
it was entertaining - it won't change your life, but worth a spin
don cheadle is very good
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the best films about music might actually be richard lesters

on the other hand, i think the best films about music would actually not be narrative cinema, but art cinema, where images are used more abstractly, rather than to tell a story, ie. images used in the same way as music is played, not bound to narrative necessities and limitations. im struggling to think of a specific example though . or have i just described music videos?
 

entertainment

Well-known member
Just saw Straight Outta Compton, which I liked. It tried to talk about a lot of stuff in connection with the group and the sentiments behind the music. Race, crime and its consequences, family, police brutality, the riots, the Compton neighbourhood, wanting to escape it, music as a means to doing that, being the voice of your people, making it big from nothing, money, the music business, people screwing each other over with contracts and shit.

Naturally, it was so busy that it went over all these themes kinda superficially, so you got the basic idea without much nuance. Still a fun biopic with good acting. The scene I liked the most was the NWA members sitting around in a meeting listening to Ice Cube's diss track "No Vaseline" when it came out. Also I had no idea that Eazy E played such a central role in the history of the group. I always thought he was sort of a Old Dirty Bastard kinda character.
 
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