BEFORE: This is the first of three documentaries in my Summer Rock & Doc Block that played at DocFest, but I wasn't able to watch because I was working the event, but all three got picked up by HBO for their "Music Box" series. I'm allowing docs in that are also part of PBS's "American Masters", even though that's another "series" on TV, however I know for a fact that these movies existed as MOVIES prior to airing on HBO or PBS, they played at film festivals, so the judges ruling tonight is that these are proper MOVIES, even though they're also part of known TV series. Makes sense?
Taylor Hawkins carries over again from "Count Me In". This film and the two following will be focused on Canadian musicians, so a bit of a break from all this American rock & roll, this is a bit of a tribute to the Great White North, made possible by linking. And this has also been something of a three-film tribute to Taylor Hawkins, who passed away in March, and for the record I had planned to use him as a link here before he died.
THE PLOT: Documentary centers on the life and work of Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette while making her breakout album "Jagged Little Pill".
AFTER: The reason that Taylor Hawkins was interviewed for this film is that before he was in the Foo Fighters, he was part of Alanis Morissette's touring band, just so we're clear. And they were never involved romantically, that's also clear, because of some kind of agreement between her and their band, that the band members wouldn't get involved with each other, which sounds smart. Bands like Fleetwood Mac and ABBA might have lasted longer if they'd had similar policies in place, but then again, maybe they wouldn't have produced such great music if the band members hadn't lived their lives passionately, it's tough to say. Relationships are tricky and break-ups are terrible, but they've also provided fuel for some great music over the years, just look at, well, Alanis's song "You Oughtta Know".
That's one of the few songs from her that I know, there's that one and "Ironic", and after that, I'm pretty much lost. Maybe in the future I should stick to rock documentaries where I'm also a fan of the artist in question, I didn't know who half the drummers were in "Count Me In" - I knew the classic half, not the modern half - and that probably affected my enjoyment of the film. Here I heard the early Alanis stuff and I just didn't care about it, I only know a couple tracks off of "Jagged Little Pill", an album that it's estimated was owned by 10% of Americans at a certain point in the mid-1990's. So for me this was really a sleeper film until it got to the point where she had her multi-platinum record.
Alanis herself seems to have accepted that her career, like everyone else's, is going to have peaks and valleys, periods of intense publicity and then perhaps a few years of obscurity, and unlike those giant mega-star artists who feel compelled to make a new album every two years and then go out on tour to fuel the record company machine, she only released new music when she's ready and/or when she wants to. That feels like a more healthy attitude to have, like if the new album is a hit, that's great, but if it doesn't land, well, that's just how it goes, maybe it will catch on later or maybe the next record will connect with more people.
The more interesting part of the film may concern the singer's reluctance to talk about what may have happened to her as a teen pop star, someone touring the world to film music videos and perform in concerts, surrounded by older men with minimal oversight. Clearly some things went down, as she suggests that inevitably any relationship when she was fifteen was bound to turn sexual, and that there are many active pedophiles out there, but for whatever reason she won't name names, and merely expresses support for all women who choose to come forward with their stories of abuse or sexual misconduct. That's a really fine line to walk, perhaps, but if that's where she feels comfortable, more power to her, I guess. Being a pop-star also gave her a life-long eating disorder to deal with, so that's another part of the trade-off, the dark side of fame for teens.
Morissette has been quoted as calling this documentary "reductive" and "salacious", I guess because the director told her the film would be JUST about the making of the album "Jagged Little Pill" and then diverged into more, like those incidents referred to above. But there's actually very little here about her personal life, her boyfriends over the years, or her husband and children, seen briefly only at the end. And if she didn't want to talk about those incidents, she could have said, "Next question, please..." at any time. Just saying. Her calling the documentary "salacious" when it only barely touches on her personal life is quite ironic.
And that song "Ironic", which itself doesn't contain any ironic situations - that's probably the only thing about it that IS "Ironic", so we find ourselves with a real paradox here. "A free ride when you've already paid" is not ironic, that's just a dumb situation. "Rain on your wedding day" is not ironic, that's just weather, or bad luck. Rain is not inherently BAD, nor is a wedding day inherently GOOD, they're both just events that happen, and their ultimate nature is subjective, to be determined later in both cases via other connected events or situations. "Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife..." - when does that even happen? What weird restaurant or home goods store are you in if you can't find a knife? And who has ten thousand spoons? It's just weird, but not ironic. And so the only irony in the song exists in the fact that it's named "Ironic" and contains NO irony itself. It's meta-ironic, but not regularly ironic. Supposedly it's been said to contain "dramatic irony" rather than "situational irony" but that sounds to me like a bit of a cop-out.
I just wonder if she agreed to the documentary to support her most recent albums, released in 2020 and 2022. The most recent one is just an album of meditation music, that just can't be selling well. Or maybe she agreed because she had spare time, with her 25th anniversary tour for "Jagged Little Pill" scheduled for June of 2020 and then cancelled due to the pandemic. This is perhaps why filmmakers tend to make documentaries about recently deceased comedians and musicians, as their subjects are less likely to complain about the result.
Also starring Alanis Morissette, Lorraine Ali, Glen Ballard, Steve Baltin, Chris Chaney, Stephanie Gibson, Michele Laurita, Shirley Manson, Steve Margo, Guy Oseary, Jocelyn Rheaume, Kevin Smith (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Johanna Stein, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Lisa Worden,
with archive footage of Tony Bennett (last seen in "Class Action Park"), Beyoncé (last seen in "The Accidental President"), David Bowie (last seen in "WBCN and the American Revolution"), Gabriel Byrne (last seen in "Carrie Pilby"), Kurt Cobain (also carrying over from "Count Me In"), Dave Grohl (ditto), Courtney Love (ditto), Krist Novoselic (ditto), Diablo Cody, Billy Corgan, Chris Cornell, Burton Cummings, Rivers Cuomo (last seen in "Sound City"), Trent Reznor (ditto), Dr. Dre (last seen in "Hitsville: The Making of Motown"), Leslie Howe, Nick Lashley, Geddy Lee (last seen in "Rush: Time Stand Still"), David Letterman (last seen in "The Amazing Johnathan Documentary"), Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Madonna (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Dennis Miller (also last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Darius Rucker, Susan Sarandon (last seen in "Snitch"), Seal, Pat Smear (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Snoop Dogg (last heard in "The Addams Family" (2019)), Layne Staley (also last seen in "Class Action Park"), Gwen Stefani, Taylor Swift (last seen in "Cats"), Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, Jesse Tobias, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Scott Weiland, Scot Welch, Thom Yorke, Neil Young (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Juno awards
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