BEFORE: This week I'm hitting the big Summer vibe in the Summer Rock & Doc Block - first there was the Summer of Love (Boston style), then a recording studio in the Caribbean, and now it's the Beach Boys, from sunny So Cal. I'd drop in "Summer of Soul", but that's like my big blow-out finish this year, for linking reasons that film will be watched in August, not July.
Today's documentary aired on the "American Masters" series on PBS, and I really should keep a better eye on their programming, they ran the Rita Moreno documentary that's also on Netflix, and I just picked up two more docs, one about Keith Haring (which I can't seem to work into this year's chain) and one about Sammy Davis Jr., which should go perfectly with my other docs about Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis. I've got the whole Rat Pack coming up in two weeks, I hope it's not just the same doc four times in a row.... The problem is, that's a special search, once a film is part of the "American Masters" series, then it doesn't appear in my DVR's listings under its own name - so I'll have to remember to keep checking for that specific title, maybe twice a month going forward. It could be worth it.
Elton John carries over from "Under the Volcano".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Beach Boys: Making Pet Sounds" (Movie #3,029), "The Wrecking Crew" (Movie #3,030)
THE PLOT: Documentary that looks at the career of musician Brian Wilson.
AFTER: It's been a few years since I watched a doc about the Beach Boys, so I guess I was due to circle back, especially since this one played at the Tribeca Festival in June 2021 and then got a limited release in November. But it's basically a puff piece, one that was produced by Brian Wilson's second wife (umm, she might be a bit biased) under her maiden name, of course, and so you would rightfully expect it to treat Brian Wilson as a genius and the main driving creative force behind the band. Which he may be, but it would be better to hear that from somebody who didn't have a dog in that fight. Notice that Mike Love's name did not appear ANYWHERE in the film's credits, or in the IMDB credits, despite all the archive footage of him. That's telling.
Much of the film takes place in the car of Brian's friend, and Rolling Stone reporter, Jason Fine. Jason drives Brian around to various locations in California, presumably over the course of a day, or several days, and after lunch they go to the beach locations where certain Beach Boys album covers were photographed, or Brian's first house in Beverly Hills, or his second house in Bel Air, but often Brian refused to get out of the car - it was all about his comfort level, it seems, and the fact that he doesn't like to be interviewed for more than 10 minutes, but he will drive around with a friend, listening to music and talking about old times. I understand the limitations, but a camera shot of Brian Wilson in the passenger seat doesn't really tell us anything, and also isn't very cinematic, it's like those shots of Robert Downey's face inside the Iron Man helmet in the "Avengers" movies that add nothing to the story and drive me crazy.
There are also scenes with music producer Don Was at the mixing board, pushing the various sound levels up and down on a mix of songs like "Good Vibrations" to highlight the various instruments, and each time coming to the conclusion that he has no idea how somebody would put a song like that together. Well, of course not, you had to be there, and then even if you were, the whole song's already mixed in Brian Wilson's head, and it's just the job of everyone in the studio to try and let him re-create that. This really helps out my chain, because it shows that Brian Wilson was really to the Beach Boys what George Martin was to the Beatles.
However, anybody who has seen the documentary "The Wrecking Crew!", like I have, knows the real secret about the Beach Boys - they were great singers, but only semi-competent musicians, except for Brian on the piano. Brian assembled the songs in the studio (or sometimes four different studios) with session musicians doing the difficult instrumental work, and then those songs had to be dumbed-down substantially so that the Beach Boys could play them on stage. The versions played in concert in the 1960's were radically different from the records, though I suppose with so many screaming teenage girls, nobody really noticed or cared - but musically and ethically, it still feels like a swindle. Talent-wise, 80% of the Beach Boys were just a step above the Monkees, who sang the work of other song-writers in addition to having session musicians record the albums.
The film also needed to address the years Brian Wilson spent in isolation, occasionally under the control of shady doctor Eugene Landy. Which it does, but it also kind of glosses over a lot of what went down. For whatever reason, Brian was out of control when it came to alcohol, drugs and over-eating - but several times he just kinds of waves it away, saying things like "I had a tent in my bedroom where I smoked grass" or "Hey, I used to eat two steaks and a slice of birthday cake for breakfast..." like it's an amusing anecdote, instead of self-destructive behavior. Any young rich person might do this, but that doesn't make it entertaining, it's flat-out unhealthy.
Interview footage from the mid-60's shows him as an awkward young guy, unsure of what to say to a woman interviewing him before a concert. He really hasn't changed that much in 50+ plus years, he still sort of talks like an awkward teen, despite all the water under the bridge - I guess that's better than being an angry old coot like George Carlin was, but Wilson seems naive and out of touch, too far in the other direction, if that makes sense.
I'm not going to parse through all the things that happened in Brian Wilson's life that affected him, you can read all of that on Wikipedia - but I still wonder why everything's such a struggle for him, why he's scared by certain normal, everyday things and why it takes him so long to get things done now. He had all that energy and drive when he was mixing tracks and composing songs, but then I guess once drugs entered the picture, all bets were off. This film mentions that he began having auditory hallucinations when he was 22, shortly after he started using psychedlics (gee, do you think there might be a connection there?) and then later medical diagnoses included everything from manic depression to paranoid schizophrenia. Then there's debate over whether Eugene Landy's drug regimen saved Wilson's life or made his health worse.
I can't even delve further into this subject by watching the 1995 documentary "Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times", because it doesn't link up with tomorrow's film, so that would mean breaking the chain...or tearing my list apart and re-assembling it. Anyway, that film's 25 years out of date by now.
Also starring Brian Wilson (last seen in "Echo in the Canyon"), Al Jardine (ditto), Jakob Dylan (ditto), Jason Fine, Bob Gaudio, Taylor Hawkins (last seen in "Sound City"), Jim James, Nick Jonas (last seen in "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"), Linda Perry (last seen in "Dolly Parton: Here I Am"), Bruce Springsteen (last seen in "WBCN and the American Revolution"), Don Was, Carnie Wilson, Blondie Chaplin, Probyn Gregory, Stephen Kalinick, Mark Linett, Steven Page, Andy Paley, Daian Sahanaja,
with archive footage of Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "Spielberg"), John Belushi (ditto), Hal Blaine, Dick Clark (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Mike Douglas (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Larry King (ditto), Eugene Landy, Mike Love (also last seen in "Echo in the Canyon"), Linda McCartney (also carrying over from "Under the Volcano"), Paul McCartney (ditto), Marilyn Wilson, Melinda Wilson, Carl Wilson (also last seen in "Echo in the Canyon"), Dennis Wilson (ditto),
RATING: 6 out of 10 unheard tracks from Dennis Wilson's album
No comments:
Post a Comment