MJ Docs: The Doc That Changed Everything

Docs like Gimme Shelter , Woodstock and Some Kind of Monster probably are what many people regard as the genre’s most influential. But there is a strong case that Martin Bashir’s Living With Michael Jackson was the rock doc that had the biggest impact outside the screen.

I still remember watching it for the first time. Cannily, VH1 had bought the rerun rights to the doc after 20/20’s premiere, only because anything with MJ usually rated well and second runs of news programs are pretty inexpensive. I’m not sure anyone had any idea of the what was in the show; I certainly didn’t!

At the start of the doc, when MJ climbs into the tree, I thought “here we go again.” From having covered Jackson and delved into his history, I knew that some of his craziest press he brought on himself. For instance, we interviewed a former National Enquirer editor who said it was Jackson’s press people who called him, urging the tabloid to cover his hyperbaric bed chamber. So when he was up in his favorite tree, confessing to Bashir that he loved to go there to think, or shown on an insane Vegas shopping spree, buying ugly furniture and totems at will, I watched with amusement, figuring the whole thing was another publicity ploy.

MJ finally admitted to some plastic surgery (though only two nose jobs!) and other assorted revelations that were all forgotten when later in the program, he got to the confessional: “sharing your bed is the most wonderful thing a person can do.” At that moment, there were no more suspicions about his calculating nature. No one who had just emerged from a molestation scandal would ever go to that place again and yet there was MJ babbling about kiddie sleepovers. Something was incredibly amiss and the world got weirder after that moment, for singer and for viewers. As many remember, the boy on that program who testified to MJ’s friendship came out a few weeks later to accuse him of molestation. (Oddly, though the boy was a minor, everyone knew his name from teh show but the media always redacted it anyhow. In today’s anything goes Internet climate, that would never happen now.)

There was no way for him to recover from the PR damage. He released a very lame second camera version of the Bashir interview (taped by his own people) which had Bashir praising his parenting skills and creativity – MJ was trying to show the world Bashir had a hidden agenda. But surely someone knew that it was only the feint praise of a reporter, eager to keep his subject speaking, and not evidence of a conspiracy, right? (Finding out where MJ’s press people were during this debacle is a great untold story.) MJ was later declared innocent but until his recent passing, no one ever spoke about his musical legacy when his name came up.

Whatever pain MJ felt surely grew more acute after that special, the trial, and he became even more of a hermit with a persecution complex. Or maybe he happily stepped out of the public eye to raise his children privately? With him, news reports often completely opposite facts. But on the tape, talking to Bashir about children, was as boundaryless as Michael Jackson would ever appear in public.

NBC has been rerunning the Bashir doc but like everything else, most of it can be found on YouTube now.

Life. Support. Music. On POV tonight

Not every music doc is a journey of self-expression or a celebration of sound. Sometimes it can be a matter of life or death. (Doesn’t that intro sound like a real TV promo line?) I’m dissembling here if only because the story in the music doc Life. Support. Music. is so powerful, horrifying and astonishing that I’ve had trouble writing cogently about it since it’s release last year. But tonight, it airs as one of the films in the excellent PBS documentary series POV.

Jason Crigler, New York City guitarist in the fraternity of musicians (playing with folks like John Cale, Marshall Crenshaw, Rufus Wainwright and Linda Thompson) had a CD and new baby on the way when he collapses during a gig. Rushed to the hospital, doctors inform the family Jason had a brain hemorrhage and that he may live the rest of his life in a vegetative state.

Eric Daniel Metzgar is a filmmaker and friend of Jason’s and seems to have been with camera at the moment of the tragedy. With his own footage and that obatained from the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, he’s crafted perhaps the definitive documentary about brain injury. Jason is frankly a ghost and his condition is shown unvarnished. Yet slowly, he begins a recovery that in both life and film is nothing short of miraculous.

Life. Support. Music. is intense and intimate. But only an expertly crafted film could make the viewing so emotional. This type of movie is almost built for a smaller screen. As for the music connection, artists like Norah Jones helped give concerts to raise money for Jason’s rehab. And when Jason returns to the stage for the first time since his injury, his relationship to music changes in unexpected ways. For one thing, his hands are gnarled tight, making him having to reinvent how he approaches his instrument.

When I saw it at Hot Docs last year, I had to unexpectedly leave the screening before it finished. But incidental to my knowledge and interest in the film, I’ve gotten to meet Jason through a mutual friend so I know how it ends from first-hand experience. But am looking forward to seeing how it ends on film tonight. To quote one last TV promo, check local listings for your PBS affiliate and times. Lots of good bonus content on the POV web site too. And check out Jason’s music as well.

MJ Docs (Update): The Last Footage (continued)

The other day, I wrote about the possible fate of the final Michael Jackson footage. A preview has finally been released (see clip) and it looks, well, like a rehearsal. (Can only imagine the special effects that may have accompanied MJ’s slow motion moves.) Even though no outlet has addressed the rights and clearance challenges I outlined, The Wrap did provide some details of what’s in the vault. Concert promoter AEG Live says it has “in excess of 100″ hours of multi-camera HD video and audio. They’re considering a movie, a live album and a DVD. An AEG spokesman said the company had large quantities of recorded video “from many, many rehearsals and meetings.” More to come.

MJ Docs: The Fans Get Their Moment

No continuing review of docs about Michael Jackson would be complete with the view from the fans: loyal, loco, passionate. Above is the complete doc called We Are The Children, which examines a group of Jackson fans during his 2004-2005 trial for child molestation. It includes fans holding supportive dance parties on Hollywood Boulevard to court proceedings in Santa Maria and vigils at Neverland. Also a fair amount of folks who dress up as MJ. I wrote about Fanumentaries earlier and I wonder how this doc compares to Kiss Loves You. Maybe there is a list of top Fanumentaries worth compiling.

MJ Docs: The Making of Thriller

Seems appropriate this week that this blog should focus on all the documentaries that examined Michael Jackson. It’s tougher than its sounds. He was one of the most difficult people to profile, given Motown, Sony and his own penchant for locked up control of his music as well as personal effects like photos. In many ways, it reflects an era hard to comprehend. All music was carefully apportioned and doled out at just the right time – in fact, before MTV, labels avoided any acts on TV in fear it would dilute the concert going experience or rob the recordings of mysteries. (Contrast that to today where the ideal is to get as much exposure on as many different platforms as possible and release things for free in hopes they’ll entice someone to pay for something.) So Jackson and his team zealously guarded the myth and mythmaking, presenting only the art and not the making of. (And obviously, MJ’s private life was always at arm’s length, until the ill-fated Bashir documentary, which will be the subject of a forthcoming post.)

But one early project that broke through the veil was this pathbreaking Making of Thriller project. At 45 minutes, director John Landis had the foresight to record the behind the scenes dancing and make-up discussions at the Thriller video shoot. It became a precursor and model to today’s DVD extras.

The Making of doc was the subject of a recent feature in the UK’s Telegraph before Jackson’s passing. When Landis submitted the script for Thriller, the 14 minute video length was longer than any video anyone had proposed, as was its price tag, rumored to be $1 million but more likely in the hundreds of thousands. MJ’s record label refused to pay for it at the time, arguing the album was already on its downward chart descent. So Landis did a deal with Showtime (with some funding from MTV) as well as the making of feature. Landis admits at the time:

We used to call it ‘The Making of Filler’. It turned out very well, but the truth is that it’s filled with scenes from American Werewolf because I owned them, and anything else we could find to fill up the time. When we found we were still six minutes short, we decided to put in pieces of the video itself. In fact, it’s very effective, but at the time I thought, ‘This is shameless.’

Check out the start of the Making Of piece above from YouTube. I believe the official release is out of print but searchable on eBay and Amazon.

The Fate of the last Michael Jackson Footage

Michael Jackson was being filmed during preparations for his upcoming concerts at London’s O2 arena. With Jackson’s death, what’s going to happen to that footage?

According to NBC’s Dateline, once executives involved in organizing Jackson’s upcoming shows learned of his death, they met at Staples Center in Los Angeles (site of Jackson’s final rehearsal) and secured all of the performance rehearsal footage. AEG Live the giant concert promotion firm who were underwriting the project, has control of it. They were planning to release a DVD and companion album about Jackson’s comeback tour.

Predictably, there is a lot of haze about what’s going to happen with the footage, almost as much haze as the rehearsals themselves. (Some reports said that Jackson was dutifully preparing for his London shows; other articles said he barely had shown up for practices these past few months.) And its not known whether the footage is just Jackson on stage or being followed verite style throughout the preparations for the show. Also, the video in question may just be footage from the last rehearsal, the night before Jackson died (the LA Times has details of that night from a variety of entertainment executives and Jackson cohorts who were there.) TheWrap did report that it was recorded in “multi-camera, high-definition video and multi-track audio.”

Some reports have speculated that the footage could cut together and exclusively shown as a doc at the London O2 arena, to avoid large scale rebates to fans who bought tickets to the 50 Jackson shows. Or maybe it will be rushed to create a theatrical film. Or even sold to television. But that seems to be the most valuable unreleased footage in the world right now.

UPDATE: A good friend with vast experience in rights and clearances reminds me of a vital point about this footage: although AEG has captured MJ’s last rehearsals, they probably only own the footage, not the music rights. If MJ lip synced at rehearsals, the underlying recorded music needs to be cleared with Sony. And if MJ sang anything live, it’s likely that MJ’s contract stipulates that Sony owns those as well. With money-losing music labels seeking maximum fees for licenses plus the Jackson estate’s web of attorneys, he predicts “this footage will never see the light of day.”

Reggae Doc Takes Silverdocs

There were so few brand new music doc premieres at the Silverdocs festival this year that I didn’t even write my usual festival preview. And of course, the winning film for best music documentary was the rare one I haven’t hyped that had its U.S. premiere. So congrats to RiseUp, a classic 8 Mile, Rocky-like underdog story set in the underground music scene of Jamaica. Director Luciano Blotta tracks three artists in varying circumstances who all dream of becoming the island’s next iconic reggae figure. Lee “Scratch” Perry, Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar make appearances which will please those hip to the reggae scene.

Trailer released for It Might Get LOUD

I’ve related the early reviews for It Might Get Loud, a doc about the electric guitar playing and the prowess of masters like Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White (again.) Finally, the trailer is out (see above) and a recent LA Times piece had some good quotes from Davis Guggenheim, the director, who famously did An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore. Guggenheim, who calls himself a “Behind the Music” junkie, nevertheless says his film was a “rethink” of the music documentary:

They’re either about car wrecks or drug overdoses, or they’re about celebrity worship, big platitudes about how they changed American culture. We wanted to go deeper.

I’m with him about platitudes, but sometimes the backstory is as exciting (or more) than the music. Nevertheless, it’s going to be fun to see a non-concert, non-making of the album doc about music.

Also worth watching as a technique was something Guggenheim repeated from Inconvenient Truth, where he built the narrative around audio interviews with Gore.

When the film crew was there with all the lights, Al Gore would be different. It would be more formal. The whole idea was how do we break through this facade and how do we become more intimate and more personal? When the film crew went away, I’d drive around the farm with him in his car and I’d get the greatest stuff.

The film opens August 14 in Los Angeles and New York.

White Stripes Doc May Do Toronto Film Fest

Another close text scoop from the folks at The Playlist: The White Stripes doc (which they amazingly caught reference to in an otherwise longer piece in Self-Titled mag about Jack’s latest band Dead Weather) has a new doc on the way. Per Jack, there are 40 songs to be mixed. And now in Canada’s National Post (do those guys read everything or have the best settings for Google reader?), there is “speculation” that the doc The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights is expected to close out this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Per the Playlist:

The doc was shot on the Stripes 2007 Canadian tour, where they played a gig in every province and territory. A tribute, White says, to his Nova Scotia roots. White says about the tour, “I always thought it was an untapped frontier. We booked a show in every province and territory and we found out that no Canadian band had done that. It was great to be part of a new frontier there for a minute or two.”

I think Anvil played Toronto last year (it certainly opened Hot Docs) so credit Canadian cineastes to getting hip to rock docs. (The As Ugly As I Seem clip above is from Charlie Rose, not the upcoming film.)

Another Rock Star Oenophile

Motley Crue’s Vince Neil got some attention a few years back for starting his own wine label. But Tool’s Maynard James Keenan is taking it a step further, by opening his own vineyard – and in an Arizona desert to boot.

His endeavor is the subject of an upcoming documentary, which is a very quirky rock doc. Keenan is an Arizona native and back in 2006, he discussed how he got hip to wine:

Being in an occupation that requires me to travel quite a bit, you’re just exposed to more cultural things than you would if you were growing up in the suburbs of Boise, Idaho. When you’re drinking warm Coca-Cola and your accountants and managers and booking agents are walking around with these nice glasses with nice red juice in it, you say, ‘Hey, that doesn’t look like what I’ve been drinking in the dressing room. What’s that? I’m not going on stage unless I get to have what you have.’

The recently released trailer is luminously shot (with the much hailed RED camera, which earns its props) and really gives a cool ghostly, mysterious, wild west vibe to what is basically an effete hobby.

The doc is being helmed by Ryan Page, most well known for his films Moog about electronic music pioneer Bob Moog, and the recent The Heart Is A Drum Machine . He’s hoping to finish the film for a 2010 release and I’m hoping one day to get a taste of wine that’s grown in the desert.