USA,
1997, 86 min
Shown in 1998
CREDITS
- dir
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Jonathan Demme
- prod
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Peter Saraf
- cam
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Anthony Jannelli
- editor
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Andy Keir
- source
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MGM Distribution, 2500 Broadway Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404. FAX: 310-264-8610. WEBSITE: MGMUA.com/ motionpictures/
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COMMENTS
Robyn Hitchcock and Jonathan Demme in person.
OTHER
In this warm, intimate concert film, director Jonathan Demme, who put a big suit on David Byrne and thereby made pop music history, aims his camera at the eclectic singer-songwriter (invariably described in hyphenated phrases, like psychedelic-folk-rocker) Robyn Hitchcock. Avoiding rock star clichés is a Hitchcock trademark—he spouts quasi-poetic, often hilarious, surreal monologues between songs, most of which seem to mention vegetables—and Demme helps him avoid most of the standard rock film ideas. Hitchcock plays in a storefront window, the audience unseen, behind the camera. We see the street behind him, over his shoulder, as people stop and peer into the window, trying to make out what’s going on inside. This may seem gimmicky, but the constant flow of passersby and glimpses of a bustling New York City street accentuate the human elements of Hitchcock’s music. The image of the singer, ingratiatingly nervous but poised, pumping out his carefully enunciated pop essays in front of the day-to-day business of city life is unforgettable. Demme alters the staging to reflect the tone of the songs, adding multicolored filters over the window or blanketing the stage in darkness, with only a single candle providing soft, inviting warmth. Hitchcock can certainly go off on bizarre tangents, but at no point does Demme’s intelligent direction stop making sense.
—Nick Tangborn
FACTOID #300
When she attended the 1980 San Francisco International Film Festival for a tribute, Federico Fellini’s wife and muse Giulietta Masina, admitted that she accepted a bit part in the American film The Madwoman of Chaillot (despite the fact that she could not speak English) just so she could get costar Katherine Hepburn’s autograph.
