EMPIRE AVENUE, PARK CITY
Just returned from the US premier of “It Might Get Loud,” my first screening of this year’s fest. I was pretty excited to be able to catch this film here at Sundance since it got pretty good buzz when it first screened back in May at the Cannes Film Festival and subsequently in September at the Toronto Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics has already picked up distribution for the film, so it’ll definitely find a home at a theater near you.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim, who most recently directed “An Inconvenient Truth” and made Al Gore a movie star, “It Might Get Loud” is a documentary film about the history of the electric guitar framed through the eyes of three accomplished guitarists – Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin fame), the Edge (of U2 fame) and Jack White (of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs). The basic premise… take all three musicians and lock them in a soundstage together for two days and see what comes out. It sounds unstructured, but out of this loose idea Guggenheim manages to get some really interesting things out of all three as they trace their steps back through their own artistic upbringings to arrive at where they are today. Each has a unique sound and a very different story, but at the end all three find many common threads. As Guggenheim mentioned during the Q&A following the screening, most documentaries about music are either encyclopaedic and try to cover everything or they focus on the personal stories of drugs, alcohol and bus crashes. With this film, he made a concious decision to not do either, instead opting to simply let the three artists tell their own stories and develop from that an arc that allows you glimpses into some of the definining moments that lead each to their current relationship with their instruments and music. Jack White talks about how for him it’s all about creating a “challenge,” eschewing the synthetic and fighting with instruments, Jimmy Page disusses his beginnings creating Musak (really), and the Edge allows a brief glimpse into what his work sounds like once you turn off all the layered effects that so define his style. Ultimately it’s a fantastic glimpse into each artist’s process and how they relate to their work.
Will you like this film? Maybe, maybe not. For those who feel that rock music speaks to them or consider themselves electric guitar officianados, this film will land itself high on your “most awesome documentary ever” list. For those who don’t feel rock music is a window to the soul or tire quickly of listening to artists spout what many might consider cliche words about their art, then you’re probably better off seeing something else. I, for one, thought it was fantastic and want to immediately go back and watch it again.
Learn more at www.itmightgetloud.com
~Gunther
