Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I’m sort of overlooking the rock v. rock n’ roll distinction I insist upon elsewhere.
And since what I really want are films that convey what people were seeking socially, and even spiritually, from the particular style of pop music they were running with, i.e., since what I want are films more about the rock (or disco, etc.) scene than about particular artists, I am going to generally exclude the many career-rise biography films: Great Balls of Fire, La Bamba, Ray, Walk the Line, La Vie en Rose, Bird, Selena, etc. Some of these teach us key stuff about the show-biz dynamics, or even the socio-cultural dynamics, connected to a particular time and music (Ray, for example, was able to convey the shock of his appropriating gospel tunes for night-club tunes, and in one key scene Selena showed us the true slut-cultural impact of Madonna’s example), but there’s a way in which these movies begin to blend into one another. Over time, they become less useful to us, because few of them deal with how middle-class artists pursue and deal with pop music success. It’s always rags-to-riches.
I am also excluding documentaries, concert films, and, although it boots out A Hard Day’s Night, extended band-promo “big music video” movies. Perhaps some day I’ll do a set of posts on the documentaries, so the great Les Blank films and forgotten masterpieces likes Twist can get their Songbook due.
Films considered that did not make the list: Quadrophenia, Backbeat, Absolute Beginners, Zoot Suit, Reality Bites, Swingkids, Hairspray, and close call, Saturday Night Fever and High Fidelity, both of which were just a tad too trite.
Films I haven’t seen or don’t remember clearly enough to judge: Kansas City, Cadillac Records, Eddie and the Cruisers, Sid and Nancy, Gimme Shelter, Velvet Goldmine, 54, Cotton Club, Orchestra Wives, Riot on Sunset Strip—let me know if you think any of these deserve to be on my list.
But here are my ten favorites, proceeding not in ranking, but backwards in pop-historical flow:
10.) School of Rock
Big school-worthy (and Songbook-challenging!) insights about Rock and its present role in our culture lurking amid the irresistible fun of this almost-preposterous comedy.
9.) Repo Man
Yes, only rather incidentally about early 80s So-cal punk-rock, even with its sound-track, but I just can’t resist plugging this little gem of improvisational film-making. Cheerful nihilism at its most winsome.
8.) This Is Spinal Tap
I know, I know, its proper place in any list whatsoever will always be at number eleven. Everything you need really to know about heavy metal.
7.) The Last Days of Disco
One of the Whit Stillman masterpieces. About so much more than disco, but very insightful on that. Probably the finest film here, with only #4 providing serious competition in the overall-film-excellence category.
6.) Almost Famous
A bit smug in places, but when Penny Lane says, “It’s all happening!” you feel a chill go down your spine, and understand: the film is not about fame per se, but about wanting to be a part of the happening thing, about rock’s grasping out, through its music, sales, concerts, writings, and “sumptuous” hedonism, for the glorious life lived in a heroic key.
5.) The Doors
More than a biopic…a portrayal of the 60s revolution. All of Oliver Stone’s strengths and excesses are deployed here, as he seeks to subject us to the full extent of Morrison’s (and the revolution’s) spiritual seductiveness, while also forcing us to wallow in the full extent of his (and its) repulsiveness. Film-making as aggressive as the Doors’ music.
4.) American Graffiti
The self-contained smallish-town world of the Typical American Teenager, circa 1955-1963, with Rock n’ Roll almost being as important to this world as the High School and the Car. A major achievement, and one which in my judgment reveals as much of a tragic sense as a nostalgic one.
3.) Honeydripper
A number of John Sayles’ films have been subjected to criminal neglect, but perhaps none more than this one. And yet no film better captures the true roots of rock n’ roll, and more importantly, the fraught relation in the blues-swingin’ tradition between the what Albert Murray calls the Saturday Night Function and the Sunday Morning Service.
2.) Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
More about a mythological South/Appalachia, concocted out of the old-time records, than really conveying what it was like to be a part of one of those old-time audiences or music groups. But America deserves some mythology, doesn’t it?
1.) A surprise title…wait and see!
In the next six or so posts I’ll be discussing these movies in greater depth, but for now, let’s focus on ones you think ought to be here, or ones that shouldn’t be.
We might also talk about the oddity of certain pop-music genres or subjects never getting a film treatment.
June 28th, 2012 | 12:28 am
[...] Carl's Rock Songbook #53: What Are the Best Films about Popular …First Things (blog)Carl Scott. Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I'm sort … [...]
June 28th, 2012 | 6:00 am
Still in DC so I can’t comment in any detail. ALMOST FAMOUS stands out in my book and I would certainly rank SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER higher than THE SCHOOL OF ROCK. I sort of like DAZED AND CONFUSED and REALITY BITES, but maybe they don’t have enough music?
June 28th, 2012 | 6:04 am
WYLD STALLYNS!!!!!!!
When it comes to conveying 1980s hair-band rock’s enduring appeal (an appeal that post-Nirvana mope-rockers can never match), Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a must-see movie. How many other fictional bands became ubiquitous on middle- and high-school textbook covers, backpacks, etc?
June 28th, 2012 | 7:44 am
Good list.
What about rock musicals–especially a rock musical about rock music that includes issues like the music business, the lust for fame, the existence of musical talent, and in general the important role that music plays in people’s lives? It is also a movie that channels the stories and looks of Faust, The Phantom of the Opera, and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, i.e., Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Paradise. Unfortunately, most of the songs are mediocre, but the production design and cinematography are excellent, and the story is inspired by classic tales.
June 28th, 2012 | 8:11 am
[...] Carl's Rock Songbook #53: What Are the Best Films about Popular …First Things (blog)Carl Scott. Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I'm sort … [...]
June 28th, 2012 | 8:21 am
Brian, I don’t see the enduring appeal of the hair bands, but “post-Nirvana mope-rockers” is a great phrase.
Peter, 60% of Fever is great: great at capturing how the music can sweep the Travolta character away from his working-class world, great at capturing a certain time, class, and place in Brooklyn, great in all the dance scenes. Fantastic soundtrack. But the gang he runs with is portrayed in a very tiresome, over-stereotyped, and ultimately unbelievable way. To some degree his family is too. And the screenwriters seemed to have had no idea of how to end the story.
June 28th, 2012 | 9:56 am
Carl: I’d argue pretty firmly that Bill & Ted’s captures 1980s America (which is egregiously overlooked in your list as presently constructed) at least as well as American Graffiti did 1970s America, and as a movie means more to far more people. AG is pretty much a fringe movie far more liked by critics than by viewers.
June 28th, 2012 | 10:02 am
[...] Carl's Rock Songbook #53: What Are the Best Films about Popular Music?First Things (blog)Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I'm sort of overlooking the rock v. rock n' roll distinction I insist upon elsewhere. And since what I … [...]
June 28th, 2012 | 10:08 am
Ack. AG was made in 1970s, but of course was set about 10-15 years earlier. I know that, but in my mind it’s really a 1970s movie, because that’s when it was made. It was quite the retro nostalgia piece. Quite ironical, huh, based on recent discussions around here?
Let’s look at the list:
10) made in the 00s, nostalgic look at 70s rock
9) Never heard of it. Apparently has a contemporary soundtrack of 70s/80s punk
8) 70s rock (farcical)
7) 70s disco (nostalgic)
6) 70s rock (nostalgic)
5) 60s rock (nostalgic, sort of)
4) 50s rock (nostalgic)
3) Never heard of it. 50s rock?
2) “Traditional music”. Strange.
The list badly needs movies that speak to their own contemporary time, NOT ones that look back a few decades. That’s the only way to try to get a true sense for what’s really going on, if that’s what you’re trying to capture.
June 28th, 2012 | 10:20 am
[...] Carl's Rock Songbook #53: What Are the Best Films about Popular Music?First Things (blog)Since I want films about any and every sort of pop music since the advent of jazz, and about the rock music of 1966 to the present, for this topic I'm sort of overlooking the rock v. rock n' roll distinction I insist upon elsewhere. And since what I … [...]
June 28th, 2012 | 10:26 am
#1: Rock ‘n Roll High School?
June 28th, 2012 | 10:35 am
Wouldn’t the Tom Hanks directed “That Thing You Do” fit the criteria really well? Loosely based off the Beatles, it covers the music scene of those middle-class kids embracing the rock&roll sound and getting a glimpse into success and how fleeting it is as a “one-hit” wonder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzllVlzzeuo
June 28th, 2012 | 10:45 am
Brian, retrospective consideration, even if celebratory, does not necessarily equal nostalgic, but other than that your analysis of my list helpful. It points to the real lack of films dealing, during the 80s, the 90s, and the 00s, with music from those times. I do not understand why there have not been more films about Indie bands–failure and niche-popularity are interesting subjects. It likewise mystifies me why we haven’t had more films about the early punk and hip-hop scenes.
One quibble: School of Rock is about contemporary rock crica late 90s/early00s, just that its perspective is that ACDC style (but punk-influenced) hard rock is the best sort of contemporary rock. As Simon Reynolds and I would say, that’s more a recycle-ment/continuance thing than a nostalgia thing.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:56 am
Hmm. “Singles” is a candidate for a contemporary grunge movie, capturing early 90s music & culture. Don’t recall it being all that great of a movie, though..
June 28th, 2012 | 12:37 pm
24 Hour Party people, which is about the Manchester scene in the early 80s’ is a great candidate as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Qz2x94q6A
June 28th, 2012 | 4:09 pm
Much more enjoyable than the Roberts threads!
June 28th, 2012 | 4:09 pm
Well, call me crazy, but I couldn’t stand “School of Rock” or “Amost Famous.” The idolization of rock musicians in “Almost Famous” was almost sickening to me, and I thought “School of Rock” was silly.
One that nobody has mentioned is “Black Snake Moan.” The idea of a 60-70 year old black man in Mississippi chaining a nymphomaniac white girl to his radiator to teach her a few lessons about life sounds admittedly odd (and risque, to boot), but the movie is really about the blues. No, it isn’t about music on the surface, but if there was ever a “blues movie,” it would be this one.
June 28th, 2012 | 4:16 pm
Hmm again. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist for a contemporary flick to consider…
June 29th, 2012 | 9:31 pm
A movie with a killer soundtrack but lowsy script is Crazy Heart. It’s worth seeing just to experience the collaboration between Tbone and Stephen Bruto.
June 29th, 2012 | 9:32 pm
That should have been “Bruton”!
June 30th, 2012 | 10:31 pm
I second 24 Hour Party people – captures the whole british scene from the sex pistols through to blur.
July 6th, 2012 | 2:48 pm
[...] Black-played rocker/teacher character in The School of Rock. That film is one of my favorites from my list of best films about popular music. Very funny, but I also like the way presents an intelligent teaching about rock’s role in our [...]
July 11th, 2012 | 9:07 pm
[...] Man is the better of the two (again, my original listing of the best pop music films is chronological, not in terms of [...]
July 14th, 2012 | 7:43 am
[...] Man is perhaps the least justifiable entry on my list of pop music films. While punk rockers feature in only so many of its scenes, it nonetheless captures the spirit of [...]
July 28th, 2012 | 10:40 am
[...] despite its lack of conventional plot and Stone’s perhaps conflicted conception, as one of our best films on popular music, and the most insightful one about rock’s founding revolution. Comments [...]
September 23rd, 2012 | 7:08 pm
[...] move now on my list of best pop music films from THE DOORS to ALMOST FAMOUS, a natural progression in rock time to about 1973–the next [...]
September 23rd, 2012 | 7:15 pm
[...] n’ ends post. I’m going to do ONE more post on rock films, soon enough, and then give that series a rest for a while. High-time for the songbook to get back to [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact