Growing up in the sixties and seventies we were exposed to a
ton of music and musical styles that seem lacking in today’s world. At any time
you could turn on the radio and find Frank Sinatra, Black Sabbath and Sly and
the Family Stone all on the same channel. Today we tend to compartmentalize
music into sub-genres and limit listening to only what we love without exposure
to anything different. Had that been the case back then music would never have
evolved and led to different styles. Such was the case with the Detroit band
known as The Stooges.
This documentary follows the early beginnings through to the
last moments of the Stooges career along with their front man Iggy Pop. It runs
like most rock documentaries in that it follows the timeline, shows them
performing and combines that with interviews past and present to form a
cohesive of the band start to finish.
As with most bands that began in the sixties there is plenty
of open talk about the drugs they took from marijuana to acid to heroin. It
doesn’t glorify the use of those drugs but it was a part of the lifestyle they
lived. It was a part of the rock culture at the time and the fact they survived
those days without serious overdose or multiple deaths shows it didn’t always
end that way. That they don’t discourage or encourage the use of drugs shows a
more even keel in the discussion rather than aging rock stars saying “I did
this but you shouldn’t”, something most rock docs seem to do. It becomes a
hollow piece of advice in those.
The sound of the Stooges was raw and it was powerful and
that’s what drew fans to them and their music. I got the sense that this
stemmed from their home base of Detroit, of being exposed to that working class
atmosphere, of listening to the hammering of metal in factories in the area.
Many bands that came from the area were exposed to the same thing and it is
apparent in the sound of bands like Grand Funk, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Ted
Nugent and The Stooges. But The Stooges sounds was rawer than most with the
exception of perhaps MC5 who played a major role in their early years as seen
here.
This sound The Stooges created influenced so many bands and
was also part of the foundation for the next big genre of rock music to come,
punk. Their influence can be heard and is commented on in the film with their
style replicating in bands like The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth and more.
It was hard, it was fast, it was loud and it was raw. That word comes up a lot
when thinking about The Stooges and deservedly so.
The movie doesn’t spend any time discussing the solo career
of Iggy Pop and actually that turns out to be a good thing and goes along with
what he says in the film. He talks about how the band were true Communists when
they began, not in the sense of political ideology but in that they shared and
shared alike. Money coming in was divided evenly. This extended to their return
to the stage in 2003 at Coachella where he was offered so much to perform and
said they’d have to triple the amount so each band member would get the same.
To his surprise the backers agreed and they played.
The movie does give a historical perspective of the band and
that’s great that a new generation will possibly find the band through the
film. Many will be surprised at how influential they were. The biggest surprise
in the film for me was that while directed by Jim Jarmusch his style of
filmmaking isn’t on display here making the film about himself instead of the
band. Rather he sticks to the straight forward format used in most rock docs
and it pays off in the end.
As far as rock docs go this one is among the better that
I’ve seen. It tells the story of its focus, The Stooges, rather than become a
movie about stylistic choices of the director. It moves along from start to
finish for the band and offers them in performance all along the way. It
presents the band and its individual members in a respective tone allowing each
to speak never giving one more on screen time than the rest with perhaps the
exception in a small amount to Iggy. It doesn’t glamourize nor demonize the
band. It just lets the music do the talking. And what powerful talking it does.
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