Standing in the Shawdows of Motown on DVD |
Think about it. How many documentaries actually put bottoms
into theater seats? Roger & Me and Hoop Dreams are the exceptions to the
rule, not the norm. I live in New York and I haven't seen a Frederick Wiseman film
anywhere other than on PBS in over a decade. Documentaries just don't do well
theatrically.
Yet, there are so many fascinating stories that need
to be told; that are waiting to be told. Stories I'd like to see. You too, I bet.
Standing in the Shadows of Motown is one of those
stories. It's actually one I'd been dying to hear -- one I'm looking forward to revisiting
time and time again. And, even if you don't know it yet, you will want to see it yourself.
Standing in the Shadows of Motown is about
the people who made the music that made Motown famous. Not the singers, but the
almost anonymous studio musicians who arranged and played the music the stars sang over.
Called the Funk Brothers, these men were the incomparable bass player James Jamerson,
drummer Benny Benjamin, pianist Joe Hunter, and guitarists Eddie Willis and Joe Messina --
and a smattering of other unacknowledged musicians.
Meaning no disrespect to the folks at Motown who became
stars, with musicians of this caliber playing the songs, "You could have had Deputy
Dawg singin' on some of this stuff," as drummer Steve Gordon observes in the film.
Detroit had already given the world the mass-production
automobile factory and Motown was just as much an assembly line. The Funk Brothers worked
brutal hours -- they would back singer after singer for stretches of 16 hours or more. And
the versions of many of the Motown hits that finally made it onto the record owed immense
amounts to the professionalism, musical acumen, and innate swing of the band, rather than
the writers, producers, or stars involved.
These men changed an industry and created some of the most
enduring popular music of the mid-to-late twentieth century. Yet, they literally stood in
the shadows -- before this film, only a few of us even knew their names. Now we know their
story.
It's not just that the DVD is a sell-through medium, of
course -- but it helps. When I can buy this story for $23, I don't even need to think
about it -- put it in the basket and ring it up! The older model -- going through
theatrical distribution and then marketing the videos to institutions made it hard to buy
documentaries on impulse. (I love the films of Les Blank, for instance, and would love to
own them, but on videocassette they cost about $100 each.)
The other revolution is on the "manufacturing"
side of things. Films like Standing in the Shadows of Motown can get made these
days because cameras, recorders, microphones, and all the other production equipment have
become so much better that even "amateurs" now have access to "pro"
quality gear, enabling them to make films that look and sound like the ones supported by
the studios -- or close enough.
Standing in the Shadows looks and sounds just fine,
thank you. Like most modern documentaries, some lighting (or miking) situations work
better than others -- and, truthfully, there are artifacts and mild grain -- but its look
will never annoy you, simply remind you that this is real. Sonically, it is very
good and includes both DTS-ES and Dolby Digital EX 5.1 mixes (which sound the same to me).
The two-disc DVD comes packed with extras -- several
featurettes (which include additional interviews), a jam session, 15 deleted scenes, three
of the BMW shorts that created so much buzz on the Web, and a great commentary track by
director Paul Justman and Alan Slutsky.
A great film about (I just can't help myself) unsung
heroes.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
