But more and more people were raving about it so I decided to give it a whirl. I’m so glad I did.
THE BEE GEES: HOW DO YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART, directed by Frank Marshall, is one of the best rock documentaries I’ve ever seen. I actually learned stuff. I actually got a much better appreciation of their talent. And I actually found myself engrossed in their story.
There’s great archival footage and interviews with the Gibb brothers over the years so the story was mostly told in their own words. (I’m only sorry it wasn’t a documentary for CNN because then they might’ve interviewed me.)
Rock group dynamics are always complex — you have different personalities and backgrounds and ultimate career goals. But when you add to that family dynamics, played against the many traps of success you test the very foundation of the family unit. That's way more important than "should the group break up?" In the case of the Bee Gees, happily, blood was thicker than platinum.
Marshall chose to emphasize their career and not the steep price they paid for it. That's the part of the story we all did know going in. To one degree or another they all fell prey to drug and alcohol addiction. This was certainly mentioned but more in passing. Of the four brothers (including Andy), only one is left. Was all the money, fame, women, gold records and legacy worth it? I thought the best moment of the film was when Barry Gibb answered that question.
Well worth seeing, even if you still have no desire to ever hear “Stayin’ Alive” again.
24 comments :
I like how their music was used in the 1971 MELODY. Also "Stayin' Alive" matched to goose-stepping NK soldiers in Youtube video,
I was hung ho all ready to see it, but then I discovered that they skipped the “Sgt Pepper” debacle. This reeks of hagiography, and I’ll have none of that, thank you.
Plus it showcases a lot of their catalog before the soundtrack came out
.. Those melodies pre Saturday night fever (which was also great) are right up there with the best of ANYTHING that came out in the 60s..That live lp from 1978 that Barry mentions in the docu called Here at last is worth seeking out as it has minimal overdubs and captures them at the peak of their collective powers, the encores feature Andy too and when that 4 part harmony kicks in its phenomenal... And you (Ken) as a writer had to appreciate the guys writing the lyrics on the spot while in the studio!
Thanks for this review. I thought the same thing as you initially, and so have not seen it. But I will give it a try now.
Happy Holidays! I'm not a robot!
Friday Question about music in scripts, Ken!
When you're writing a script, how much do writers put music in the script or do you just put in a placeholder for the music director or someone else to fill in? When you did Dancin' Homer, did you know that you wanted Baby Elephant Walk for the music or do you have to give different option in case there are licensing problems? Do you ever use place holders like "character enters cabaret lounge where the band is playing Girl from Ipanema or similar". If a character needs to sing an original song, does the writer write the lyrics or is it done by a composer based on general idea from the writer?
I grew up listening to the Bee Gees a lot, as my dad is a fan. Over the years I think I became an even bigger fan than him. Bee Gees were my first concert in 1989. I like all eras of the group and the albums they wrote for others. Anyway, I thought I was pretty well schooled on the Brothers Gibb, but I still learned a bit from the doc and my only complaint is that I'd love to have seen more.
The story of how they made Saturday Night Fever is fascinating. I always assumed the movie just used the BeeGees music. It was actually driven by the band and their manager. The suits at the studio where it was filmed made fum of their little disco film. Turned out to be the defining movie of a decade (along with Star Wars).
We should be glad Disney never bought it because we would be seeing a whole series on Disney+ about some minor character like The Paintstore Customer.
They were great, pre-SNF. And their disco reinvention is fascinating.
Okay, will watch!
You know what I found fascinating about the Bee Gees? By the time they'd climbed the Mt. Olympus of hit record production down there in Miami, they could produce other artists and still come out with an easily-identifiable "Bee Gees record". The two most obvious examples of that were "Emotion" by Samantha Sang (wherever you are!) and my very own personal number one guilty Hot AC pleasure of all time, "Heartbreaker" by Dionne Warwick. I have had a deep, lifelong love for any recording that was built to come out of a radio speaker perfectly (see also: "Lightning Strikes", "Let's Hang On!" etc.).
Back in the late '70s I worked at a station in West Palm Beach with a Country FM across the hall. I used to hang occasionally with those dudes. There was a jock there who was also a musician. He had booked a recording session down at Criterion and he came back with the master tape. I was pawing over it and I started reading the musician roster on the label of all the folks he'd hired to play on his session. "Whoa!", I said, "Albhy Galuten on piano???" The fella goes, "Yeah, you've heard of him?" "Only the keyboard guy on the Bee Gees tunes!"
In fact, who else would they have made available but all the musicians who played on Bee Gees records?
(p.s... You need to Wikipedia "Albhy Galuten" sometime just for kicks!)
Ken, thanks for the review. Will definitely give it a shot now. Too bad none of them worked out at your gym. And now, back to the footloose dancing videos to watch again from yesterday.
I'll just chime in with my two quid here and say that the Gibb brothers made some pretty amazing music, even in their post-Saturday Night Fever era, like "Love is Thicker Than Water" and "Love You Inside Out". Seriously, they're better than you probably remember them.
I was in high school when the whole disco craze hit. I liked it a lot, something I soon found I had to keep to myself. You know, peer pressure and all that. Anyway If it ever shows up on non-cable television (or, just as likely these days, YouTube) I'll certainly give it a look.
Well, I did dislike the Bee Gees, in the late 60's when they seemed to specialize in death dirges like "I've Gotta Get a Message to You" and "New York Mining Disaster". I did like their early 70's material- "Jive Talkin" in particular. I agree with Nick Alexander that the documentary should have addressed the Sgt Pepper movie.
Unless there's a way to watch it without hearing even one note of their "music," I'll pass. I was not a fan when they were alive, and I'm not a fan now.
The only review of it that struck home to me was when a friend of mine who did suffer through it posted, "Don't watch the Bee-Gees documentary unless you want their awful music stuck in your head for days." Thank you, no. If I must get a group's music stuck in my head by a documentary, give me one on Queen, or any of the five hundred million documentaries on The Beatles. You know, GOOD music!
The Bee Gees made some wonderful records, even in the early years; think "To Love Somebody" (Jackie DeShannon did a splendid cover in 1977) and "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights." The disco stuff I could take or leave, but I agree they produced great stuff during this era, such as "Nights On Broadway" or Andy Gibb's aforementioned "Love Is Thicker Than Water" (which has superb chord changes and tension). But after "Tragedy" in early 1979, the Bee Gees largely vanished from the charts, not long before disco did.
We watched the documentary this evening based on your recommendation and really enjoyed it - thanks!
Friday Question: Was Martin’s chair designed and created for “Frasier” or was it an actual historic piece of furniture?
Musically, 'Tragedy' ticks all the boxes and will always be in my Top 100 of all time.
I like some of the Bee Gees' stuff, but not enough to subscribe to HBO. I'll see it when it appears on something I can pull in for free over a coat hanger antenna.
I vaguely recall there being a time when all five of the top five chart hits were the Bee Gees or songs they wrote and produced for others, including Andy Gibb and Samantha Sang. The media made a big deal of this, but what struck me was that they all sounded like the same song sung by the exact same singer, even though one of the singers was female.
Also, when I was on the radio and had to play them, I used to describe that falsetto "Ah! Ah! Ah!" that they put into every song as the sound of someone sitting down naked on a block of ice.
A blip on their radar screen (collectively)... Seriously the way it tanked no one cares and it had nothing whatsoever to do with their songwriting
The Sacred Triangle, about Bowie, Reed, and Iggy 71-73 is easily the best Rock Doc I have ever seen. It is edited like a fictional movie, meaning it is not just a sequential presentation of fact, but has the standard three part structure of a story, yet it is all true. Fantastic interview of all that were there at that time. The biggest surprise was the input of Angela Bowie. Stones wrote Angie about her. Never knew she was an American. She also is very crusty and does not hold back anything. It's on Prime.
"Was all the money, fame, women, gold records and legacy worth it? I thought the best moment of the film was when Barry Gibb answered that question."
Which was...?
Watched it with my wife. The Bee Gees are to her, what the Beatles were to me. We both enjoyed it with me liking the 1960s version of the group and her enjoying the late 70s version.
I watched it over the holidays. I was, and am, a Bee Gees fan (I was in love with John Travolta so the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was played a lot!) and I think they deserve to be remembered for so much more than disco. Barry Gibb is such a prolific songwriter, even more so than I thought. I was surprised to learn that they fought and spent many years not really speaking or interacting with one another.
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