With its flash and power chord panache, rock ‘n’ roll is ripe for cinematic exploration. Music makes for memorable movies, from fictional stories based on the medium to concert films that find emotional epiphanies in the strangest of song couplets. There is something seemingly unreal about artists who can transform mere words and arranged notes into an anthem, a ballad, or the soundtrack of your life. Even more amazing are the backstories involved.
Some artists listed here are a surreal combination of person and performance; their onstage act meshed with the doubts and disconnects of their everyday existence to form that most mighty of myths, the rock god. Of course, not every story has a happy ending. In the case of Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man (2012), fans trying to find out if a never-appreciated American artist named Rodriguez (who would later go on to some global acclaim) was dead… and if not, what happened to him, will be disappointed. However, like many films in this salient subgenre, the journey toward discovering the truth is just as enlightening as the result.
Here, you won’t find memorable live efforts like Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense (1984), the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter (1970), or such historical chronicles as Woodstock (1970), or its superior urban counterpart, Wattstax, from 1973. Instead, we are looking at the personal stories, the tales of talent derailment and dismissal. In this arena, there is more truth than in a three-minute song, and some of these films tell the stories of the bravest and most brutal career overviews ever.
These rock documentaries are listed in the order of their year of release.
Let It Be (1970)
Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be was meant to capture the Beatles’ return to basics, tossing off the trappings of their late ’60s psychedelia and returning to being a pop rock band. It became a celluloid testimonial to a once great act slowly falling apart. The cameras were supposed to capture the magic of the Beatles making music. Instead, it caught squabbles, sadness, and the certainty that the Fab Four wouldn’t be together much longer. Sure, the guys came together to make one more amazing album (Abbey Road), but the music documentary Let It Be is the real story of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1980)
Julien Temple’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle is not a rock documentary as much as a document, a testimonial to the marketing hyperbole of manager Malcolm McLaren and the gullibility of the British public circa the mid-’70s. Today, the antics of the Sex Pistols would barely register a mention in the media. Back then, they were the end of civilization as everyone knew it. Mixing interesting performance footage with interviews, anecdotes, and leftover material from the first go at the film, the result is a scrapbook of a scandal that was nothing more than music as merchandising.
The Decline of Western Civilization, Part 2: The Metal Years (1988)
Long unavailable due to rights issues (and the obvious debauchery on display from many future MTV limelight), Penelope Spheeris’ amazing look at LA’s glam metal scene should be mandatory viewing for any adolescent who dreams of making it big in music. First, watching wide-eyed dreamers struggle and succumb to their own warped view of fame is frightening. When they fall- and they do- the trip down is equally unnerving. Sure, their moxie can be admired, but their devotion to something that may never happen (and as history points out, more than likely won’t) coupled with the whole sex and drugs thing, moves The Decline of Western Civilization, Part 2: The Metal Years from sensationalism to just sad.
The Clash: Westway to the World (2000)
They were the rock star answer to the Sex Pistols, a band that broke the pure punk mold to become a movable feast of genres and approaches. By the time Mick Jones was “fired”, the Clash had conquered the pop charts and the concert stadiums. But as Don Letts’ timeless rock documentary The Clash: Westway to the World illustrates, there was so much more to their story than hit songs “White Riot” or “Rock the Casbah”. With infighting and personal problems in abundance (including drummer Topper Headon’s drift into heroin addiction), we see that, as much as they succeed onstage, they struggle behind it. It’s a truth that makes the Clash’s talents all the more epic.
The Filth and the Fury (2000)
During the lagging last days of their infamy, the Sex Pistols released a ridiculous anti-revisionist look at their legacy called The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle. It was a joke wrapped up in a dire band dissolution. Fast forward two decades, and director Julian Temple offered the band a mighty mea culpa, a chance to set the record straight, so to speak. Filmed in silhouette and often playing like a group confessional, the individual members recall their brief bombastic moment in the holiday sun. But it’s when growling frontman Johnny “Rotten” Lydon breaks down over the death of his mate, Sid Vicious, that The Filth and the Fury finds its undeniable soul.
Made in Sheffield (2001)
Do you think punk was the wake-up call the dinosaur-like music industry needed? Keep dreaming. As proven by Eve Wood’s provocative overview of the rise of synthesizer-based pop in England, Made in Sheffield, the most experimental and in-your-face sounds came from the tiny title community. Bands like ABC, the Human League, and Heaven 17 merged with avant-garde acts like Cabaret Voltaire and Comsat Angels to create the definitive post-modern movement. Sure, anyone could pick up a guitar and bash out three monotonous chords, but the Sheffield sound revolutionized the entire industry, an influence that can still be felt in today’s high-tech Auto-tuned world.
The Legend of Leigh Bowery (2002)
Leigh Bowery was not a rock star. He played in a few bands and lent his likeness to other acts. But for his iconic persona, an image and symbol of the growing New Romantic/Blitz movement in England circa the early ’80s, he’s practically a god. As a peculiar performance artist who used his body as a canvas, he pierced his cheeks and bound himself in outrageous costumes, all for the purpose of being bigger-than-life at the perpetual club scene party. The sequences in Charles Atlas’ The Legend of Leigh Bowery that show off Bowery’s skill as a designer and adamant agent provocateur provide the kind of historic proof that no collection of complimentary talking heads can.
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003)
Green Day can earn Grammys and Tony Nominations, but in their time, the true pioneers of punk could barely sell out small theaters. Often ignored when it came to commercial success, the “bruddas” from Queens would wind up the ultimate example of “unappreciated in their time”. With Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee long dead, Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia’s career overview of the Ramones, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, is even more disheartening. One wonders if a little mainstream success would have countered the endless bickering and infighting among the boys, but one thing’s for sure – every band who now makes their mark (and money) from the simple three-chord chaos created by this brilliant band owes the Ramones a deep debt of gratitude… and royalties.
DiG! (2004)
Ondi Timoner must have friends in very high places. When she stumbled upon the new psychedelia scene in Portland, Oregon, she discovered two bands that would change her creative world forever. One was future MTV minions, the Dandy Warhols. The other was destined-to-burn-bright-and-then-out basket cases, the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Over the course of eight years, she chronicled their unusual careers. The Dandy Warhols would end up on a major label, lamenting the loss of their indie spirit. Anton Newcombe, the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s creative genius, would go on to forge musical masterworks in relative obscurity and abuse drugs. Oh, and he would fight with his fellow bandmates as well. As a telling “be careful what you wish for” warning, DiG! is a solid statement. As a rock documentary, it’s fantastic.
Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways (2004)
Victory Tischler-Blue’s Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways deserves the praise it has earned. However, we only get part of the Runaways’ story without Joan Jett’s participation. The rest of the band is present and accounted for, along with the eternally lecherous legend (and manager) Kim Fowley. Indeed, some revelations about the wildly eccentric behind-the-scenes border on the criminal. Mixing the more sensational with the straightforward sales pitch, the group presented (jailbait sex to hormonally driven males), we get a backstage peek that’s both shocking and, sadly, very, very familiar.
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