FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies 

Anyone familiar with Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz (1978) knows too well the abounding tedium of music documentaries. Despite its stature among the greatest of all rock docs, Waltz often serves merely to showcase how insufferably boring and pretentious rock deities can be when provided a platform upon which they’re invited to pontificate about their craft. If the musicians themselves decline to natter on about cultural legacies, rock critics with dubious credentials and penchants for hyperbolic appraisal are more than happy to fill in the blanks. Rock documentary belongs, on the whole, to a very sorry class of filmmaking. It’s almost certain that if you’re not interested in a particular rock band or artist, a documentary about that performer will not appeal to you. If the music in question does float your boat, you are more likely to find value in said film, though that isn’t to say that you’re very likely to find much value at all.  More often than not, the films lack imagination, trusting instead that the supposed genius of their subjects can be relied upon to form a coherent, engaging narrative. What’s more, these fawning portraits are then padded with lame duck concert footage, because, by the time a documentary crew arrives on the scene, the group in question is likely to be long past their prime.  If the band has broken up, grainy archival footage blandly suffices.  Most “rockumentaries” have more in common with the insipidness of This is Spinal Tap (1984) than with any great tradition of documentary cinema.

The growth of fan cultures, the escalating public interest in “reality”-based programming, and the democratization of professional-grade video equipment have conspired to birth a surplus of these documentaries in the digital-era.  All a band requires is a few obsessive devotees and some mild group tension for a documentary to practically unfurl itself.  Most vexing about these films is that their directors are so entranced by their love of the music that they neglect to vet the worthiness of the narrative.  Consequently, most fail to exceed the breadth and depth of their subject’s Wikipedia entries.  From this outpouring of enthusiasm a few are released theatrically every year, while the rest are intended as mere promotional tools, packaged alongside reissued albums or in limited edition DVDs for the faithful.  Their very failure at journalism or documentation makes these films most viable as facets of promotional campaigns. There are music movies and there are movies about music; both have their place, but only the latter can claim a potential for artistry.

When considered as cinema (that is, separately from their status as fan paraphernalia) quality rock docs are so few and far between that a nearly comprehensive list will fit inside of a short paragraph (1): Instrument (1999), The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), Lonely Boy (1962), Don’t Look Back (1967), Dig! (2004), Gimme Shelter (1970), Let It Be (1970), Hype! (1996), Meeting People is Easy (1998), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004) (1).  For this group, an interest in the music under discussion isn’t required (and, really, who gives a shit about the discography of Paul Anka or The Dandy Warhols, let alone Metallica’s St. Anger album?) for audiences to feel satisfied with the product.  These films succeed because they effectively document the alchemical processes of creating, performing and selling popular music.  They are not laurel wreaths bestowed upon demigods, but are, instead, thoughtful considerations of art-making and performance, created by artists in their own right.  Each exhibits a detachment from their subjects, a critical distance that provides them a perspective unobstructed by idolatry. These films, rare exceptions to the rule of pop documentaries, refuse to regurgitate lore and legend.

It may be that Steven Galkin and Matthew Cantor, co-directors of loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies, are indeed transfixed by the grandeur of their subjects. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe read the film’s verite unobtrusiveness as a sign the pair were “too awestruck” to challenge the band into accounting for their enduringly popular collaborations and acrimonious breakup (3).  There’s a great deal of merit to this interpretation, but the filmmakers’ timorousness has the (perhaps unintended) consequence of elevating the film from hagiography to a subtly probing snapshot of middle-aged rockers in pursuit of reunion tour fortune and glory.  Whether the group merely declined the invitation to wax nostalgically about their shared history, or the filmmakers simply lacked the desire or courage to ask, the film itself is a welcome respite from the dominant strain of such portraits.

After forming in Boston in the mid-1980s, the Pixies were modestly successful as an indie rock act, playing international festivals and releasing five acclaimed albums before disbanding in 1993.  After acolyte Kurt Cobain hyped them in interviews as a key influence, the group became known for instigating the now-familiar alt-rock formula of quietly singing the verses before screaming the choruses (hence the film’s title) (4).  At the time they called it quits, the band's influence on other musicians exceeded sales of their own albums as well as their mainstream recognition.  Rock music fandom has since caught up with the group. In 2004, their resurgent popularity among aging post-punks and the newfound enthusiasm of the Hot Topic set culminated in a reunion tour, the chief subject of loudQUIETloud.

Since the dissolution of the Pixies, songwriter/lead vocalist Black Francis and bassist Kim Deal have pursued recording careers successfully, the former with a slew of groups, the latter with beloved critical darlings, The Breeders.  Lead guitarist Joey Santiago stumbled in jumpstarting his own career, while drummer Dave Lovering took to performing as a magician.  Lovering is the semi-tragic figure of the four, and the most forthcoming during the film’s interview sections.  He admits that the offer to reunite with his bandmates came not a moment too soon, for his royalty checks had started to dwindle thanks to online file-sharing.

Later in the film, while grappling with the news that his father has died, Lovering launches an impromptu drum solo (likely the product of nervous energy and valium, though he denies intoxication to his bandmates) at the outset of their Chicago show, marking the lone moment of explicit tension within the ranks. Francis storms off stage, the band reconvenes, and Lovering chalks the whole thing up to a faulty PA system. The rest of the time they scarcely talk to one another. Struggling with newfound sobriety, Deal travels on a separate bus with twin sister Kelly, who at one point claims that she’s never observed a group of people for whom communication is so difficult.  An onscreen title informs us that the band has agreed to prohibit alcohol and drugs in the dressing room in deference to Deal's treatment.  Titles are the film’s preferred method for providing historical and personal context.  If the band won't tell their own story, the filmmakers will tell it for them via concise, one-sentence summations. It's not an uncommon strategy today, but in this case, informative titles provide too much contour for an otherwise (fantastically) shapeless portrait.      

By most accounts -- especially if you ask the legion of fans camped outside the venues -- the music hasn’t suffered since the hiatus, though the voices of Francis and Deal can’t work up the frenzy of 20 years ago.  All the same, they are adored by their fans, who at this point have the entirety of the band’s relatively scant discography memorized.  The entire tour sold out in a matter of minutes, another title tells us. Since the tour featured in loudQUIETloud, the band has played numerous festivals and are reportedly, as of early 2010, completing a comeback album.        

It seems perverse to describe the lack of melodrama as exciting in its own right, but the film’s intrigue exists in unvoiced frustrations and pent up resentments.  Multiple times, Francis tells rock journalists about the hows and whys of the band’s demise and rebirth, but he fails to state any of these feelings to his bandmates.  After telling an interviewer that he’d love to make a new record with the group, he neglects to tell everyone else. Interactions are uniformly respectful and deeply political.  These four have united toward a common goal, like divorced parents attending a softball game.  In an odd way, it’s comforting to know that these people might not get along, or at least that they’re not going to pretend to get along for the benefit of the cameras.  loudQUIETloud isn’t nearly Wisemenian in its commitment to the quotidian, but it’s a relaxed, unhurried snapshot of pop music-making.

Appropriately, the film’s most poignant moment is one of silence: A young fan -- who speaks of Deal in religious terms -- flags down her idol after the show and the two share a moment of mutual appreciation.  The adolescent girl had discovered the Pixies while reading a YA novel (Louisa Luna’s Brave New Girl) in which the band’s music and indie cred capture the protagonist’s heart.  Deal and her disciple chat amiably enough, but the girl forgets to slip her hero a cherished, highlighted copy of the book.  The scene ends as the girl sobs at having been so absent-minded.  The next scene features a solemn Deal (heretofore the most loquacious of the four) aboard the tour bus going through the book’s highlighted passages, which reference the music she made two decades previously (it's safe to assume a hanger-on or the filmmakers passed the book along).  It’s a weirdly cosmic moment, but Deal wears a silent, puzzled expression.  Confronted by such a tangible example of her impact upon a generation, what could she possibly be thinking? Like the rest of her bandmates, she just doesn't say. (5)

loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies / USA / 2006 / Color / 85 min. / Directed by Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin /  Featuring: Charles "Black Francis" Thompson, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and Kelley Deal.

Notes:

1 - I’ll cop to not having seen these well-regarded rockdocs: Woodstock (1970), Stop Making Sense (1984), Cocksucker Blues (1972), Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009), No Direction Home (2005), Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007), or (most embarrassingly) Buena Vista Social Club (1999).  Even if each of these count as genuine masterpieces, the final tally of great music documentaries would still rest at a pitifully low number.

2 – Indie icons Fugazi star in Instrument; Decline charts the emergence of American Punk in the southern California; Lonely Boy is the brilliant short doc, by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor, about the fabrication of Paul Anka’s career and personality (which can be viewed here); the surly Bob Dylan lets D.A. Pennebaker’s camera tail him in Dont Look Back [sic]; Ondi Timoner captures the feud between the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols in Dig!; the Maysles do Altamont in Gimme Shelter; The Beatles disintegrate while finishing their worst album in Let it Be; Doug Pray exposes the effects of corporate and media malfeasance on Seattle's early 90's grunge scene in Hype!; Radiohead become an Important Band in Meeting People; and Metallica disintegrate and regroup while finishing their worst album in Some Kind of Monster.

 3 - The review, from an acknowledged enthusiast, can be found here.

4 - Cobain claimed that "Smells like Teen Spirit," was merely a Pixies "rip off" in Rolling Stone magazine shortly before his death: 

Fricke, David "Kurt Cobain: The Rolling Stone Interview." Rolling Stone, #674. 27 Jan. 1994.

5 - loudQUIETloud can be viewed in its entirety here.