There are two very engrossing and expansive new docs on two very well known -- or so it would seem -- music acts The Bee Gees and Frank Zappa, that are definitely worth seeing.
Alex Winter, who is best known for playing Bill in the Bill & Ted movies takes on the challenging task of directing a film about Zappa (called simply, Zappa), one of the most prolific and hard to pigeonhole artists of all time. It's decidedly not a traditional documentary in the sense that it doesn't follow a strict chronology or walks us through his oeuvre album by album.
Instead the film's preoccupation is Zappa's complex musicianship and brutal work ethic rather than the full depth and breadth of his career, which can make it kind of a frustrating watch for the uninitiated or even the somewhat initiated. You get the sense that he was a deeply committed artist, to a fault, and a pretty closed off, even cold person -- but the music is unique and his unwillingness to compromise this vision is admirable.
Because Zappa is gone, the film has to rely a lot of the people who lived with him and played alongside him. The interviews are solid, but the footage of Zappa himself -- as irascible as he was -- is the highlight of the film. His crusade against record censorship, for instance, comes across quite well.
I left the movie appreciating his music more, but wishing the film had more of a cohesive center (it feels very haphazard, which perhaps the point) and some emphasis on the joy -- if there was any -- in his efforts, rather than all the many thinks that made him cantankerous. Frankly, Zappa comes off as a bit of pompous grump -- albeit an immensely talented one.
On the other hand, The Bee Gees: How Can You Bend a Broken Heart, is a much more emotionally accessible film. It has an aura of sadness about it, not just because two of members of the band (plus their younger brother Andy) have all died, leaving Barry Gibb as the lone voice from the family -- but because the band was unfairly viewed simply as a disco act, when their career was much longer and far more complicated.
You walk away from this film with not just an appreciation of their one of kind voices, but their songwriting artistry (they were behind Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers' hit "Islands in the Stream"). You recognize that they were far more respected by their peers than people realized. They're also far more likable and self aware than Zappa was.
This film does what the best musical biopics do -- it puts you at the center of their creativity, shows you how they developed their signature sound (the reveal of how "Staying Alive" was conceived is riveting) and effectively conveys the emotional feelings their music inspired.
I've become an enormous, almost obsessive fan in recent years -- they're one of those artists that you know all the hits but you may not have really paid close attention to the lyrics of talent of the Gibbs themselves. And, sadly, they became a victim of their own success.
The most telling moment comes during the infamous "Disco Sucks" debacle in 1979 during a White Sox game. An anti-disco DJ led a cruel event where disco records were to be destroyed, but the film reveals that most of records being destroyed that day were by black artists -- and the Bee Gees, while white, were very much viewed as validating that culture.
To their credit they take great pains to pay homage to the black artists who inspired them, and this movie should inspire you, to seek out more of their work.
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