Some Kind of Monster
I saw a portion of this documentary today on MTV2. Very good even though I've never been partial to Metal. Kind of makes you want to download Metallica songs (for free) just to watch Lars blow a gasket. If you haven't already seen this - you should check it out.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies
Heavy-Metal Headshrinking and Other Secrets of the Rock 'n' Roll Business
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: July 9, 2004, Friday
Early in 2001, Metallica, one of the longest-lived and most popular heavy-metal bands, went into a converted military barracks in San Francisco to begin working on a new album. The group, which had just lost its bass player, was accompanied by a therapist named Phil Towle, and also by two filmmakers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, who had used Metallica's music in ''Paradise Lost,'' their 1996 documentary about a murder case in Arkansas. Though the next two years were full of creative and interpersonal struggle, they yielded serendipitous results: a fierce, brooding record called ''St. Anger'' and a fascinating documentary, ''Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,'' which opens today in New York and San Francisco.
At first the idea of a rock band in therapy sounds unlikely, if not downright comical, like ''This Is Spinal Tap'' with a screenplay by Janet Malcolm. And hearing James Hetfield, Metallica's ferocious, sometimes fearsome lead singer, talking about his feelings with Lars Ulrich, the band's baby-faced drummer, can be a little jarring. But Metallica's music is rooted in strong, unruly emotions, and it has been, for many fans, a kind of therapy in its own right.
For nearly 20 years, Mr. Ulrich, Mr. Hetfield and their various band mates have channeled the basic adolescent experiences of alienation, frustration and rage into melodramatic, at times self-consciously mythic squalls of sound. One of the insights ''Some Kind of Monster'' offers is just how much work this transformation requires, perhaps especially when it is undertaken not by teenage rebels but by family men in their early 40's.
The film takes for granted that rock 'n' roll, while it remains the soundtrack of youthful disaffection, has long since become a respectable middle-aged profession. Both Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield, the band's founding members, who started playing music together in the early 1980's, are married men with young children. They also behave, with each other, like a long-married couple who find themselves bored, dissatisfied and on the rocks.
Mr. Berlinger and Mr. Sinofsky have uncovered the mysterious dynamic of their collaboration, a relationship that is, superficially, both an artistic bond and a business partnership but that is also a deep, bubbling source of identity and anxiety for each man. Mr. Towle, a bald, platitudinous fellow who has soothed the battling egos of professional sports teams, thus becomes a kind of couples therapist for Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield. They are not the only people in the room -- Kirk Hammett, the band's guitarist, and Bob Rock, the producer and acting bassist, also participate in the sessions and have their own concerns and grievances -- but the band's genius, as well as its dysfunction, seems to grow out of the tension between the drummer and the singer.
It takes a while for this central drama to take shape -- a little too long, actually. The first 30 minutes or so of ''Metallica'' have the flavor of a standard behind-the-scenes rockumentary. But soon the bad feelings rise to the surface, and by the time Mr. Hetfield disappears into rehab to conquer his drinking problem (and also, evidently, to get away from Mr. Ulrich, with whom he has no communication for six months), you realize you are witnessing a psychodrama of novelistic intricacy and epic scope.
There are a few flashbacks to earlier days of big hair and tight leather, and some necessary digressions into the band's tumultuous history, but ''Some Kind of Monster'' wisely sticks to the complications of the present tense. Mr. Hetfield's absence shifts the focus to Mr. Ulrich, who begins to seem more tormented than his partner and less inclined to admit it. When Mr. Hetfield returns, newly sober and adept at the rhetoric of recovery, Mr. Ulrich seems angrier than ever, and you wonder if the movie will ever be finished, or if the band will survive.
As it becomes clear that it will, ''Some Kind of Monster'' retreats a little into backstage business as usual: a new bassist needs to be hired, and tracks need to be polished and selected for the album, which needs a title. We are back in the world of MTV news, which may come as a relief after the long, purgatorial passage through group therapy. By the end, Mr. Towle has worn out his welcome, which may be a sign of his professional accomplishment. When Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield, at odds for so long, unite in turning against their therapist, it's hard to fight the feeling that he has it coming and that, therefore, he has done his job.
METALLICA
Some Kind of Monster
Produced and directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky; director of photography, Bob Richman; edited by David Zieff; released by IFC Films. Running time: 139 minutes. This film is not rated.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/moviesHeavy-Metal Headshrinking and Other Secrets of the Rock 'n' Roll Business
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: July 9, 2004, Friday
Early in 2001, Metallica, one of the longest-lived and most popular heavy-metal bands, went into a converted military barracks in San Francisco to begin working on a new album. The group, which had just lost its bass player, was accompanied by a therapist named Phil Towle, and also by two filmmakers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, who had used Metallica's music in ''Paradise Lost,'' their 1996 documentary about a murder case in Arkansas. Though the next two years were full of creative and interpersonal struggle, they yielded serendipitous results: a fierce, brooding record called ''St. Anger'' and a fascinating documentary, ''Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,'' which opens today in New York and San Francisco.
At first the idea of a rock band in therapy sounds unlikely, if not downright comical, like ''This Is Spinal Tap'' with a screenplay by Janet Malcolm. And hearing James Hetfield, Metallica's ferocious, sometimes fearsome lead singer, talking about his feelings with Lars Ulrich, the band's baby-faced drummer, can be a little jarring. But Metallica's music is rooted in strong, unruly emotions, and it has been, for many fans, a kind of therapy in its own right.
For nearly 20 years, Mr. Ulrich, Mr. Hetfield and their various band mates have channeled the basic adolescent experiences of alienation, frustration and rage into melodramatic, at times self-consciously mythic squalls of sound. One of the insights ''Some Kind of Monster'' offers is just how much work this transformation requires, perhaps especially when it is undertaken not by teenage rebels but by family men in their early 40's.
The film takes for granted that rock 'n' roll, while it remains the soundtrack of youthful disaffection, has long since become a respectable middle-aged profession. Both Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield, the band's founding members, who started playing music together in the early 1980's, are married men with young children. They also behave, with each other, like a long-married couple who find themselves bored, dissatisfied and on the rocks.
Mr. Berlinger and Mr. Sinofsky have uncovered the mysterious dynamic of their collaboration, a relationship that is, superficially, both an artistic bond and a business partnership but that is also a deep, bubbling source of identity and anxiety for each man. Mr. Towle, a bald, platitudinous fellow who has soothed the battling egos of professional sports teams, thus becomes a kind of couples therapist for Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield. They are not the only people in the room -- Kirk Hammett, the band's guitarist, and Bob Rock, the producer and acting bassist, also participate in the sessions and have their own concerns and grievances -- but the band's genius, as well as its dysfunction, seems to grow out of the tension between the drummer and the singer.
It takes a while for this central drama to take shape -- a little too long, actually. The first 30 minutes or so of ''Metallica'' have the flavor of a standard behind-the-scenes rockumentary. But soon the bad feelings rise to the surface, and by the time Mr. Hetfield disappears into rehab to conquer his drinking problem (and also, evidently, to get away from Mr. Ulrich, with whom he has no communication for six months), you realize you are witnessing a psychodrama of novelistic intricacy and epic scope.
There are a few flashbacks to earlier days of big hair and tight leather, and some necessary digressions into the band's tumultuous history, but ''Some Kind of Monster'' wisely sticks to the complications of the present tense. Mr. Hetfield's absence shifts the focus to Mr. Ulrich, who begins to seem more tormented than his partner and less inclined to admit it. When Mr. Hetfield returns, newly sober and adept at the rhetoric of recovery, Mr. Ulrich seems angrier than ever, and you wonder if the movie will ever be finished, or if the band will survive.
As it becomes clear that it will, ''Some Kind of Monster'' retreats a little into backstage business as usual: a new bassist needs to be hired, and tracks need to be polished and selected for the album, which needs a title. We are back in the world of MTV news, which may come as a relief after the long, purgatorial passage through group therapy. By the end, Mr. Towle has worn out his welcome, which may be a sign of his professional accomplishment. When Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield, at odds for so long, unite in turning against their therapist, it's hard to fight the feeling that he has it coming and that, therefore, he has done his job.
METALLICA
Some Kind of Monster
Produced and directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky; director of photography, Bob Richman; edited by David Zieff; released by IFC Films. Running time: 139 minutes. This film is not rated.
posted by Anonymous at 10:09:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home