Fans of classic rock from the late sixties, through the
seventies and into the eighties will no doubt recall the music of Van Morrison.
Starting first with the band Them and their hit “Gloria”, Morrison went on to
record some of the greatest songs in rock history. But much of that happened
early in his career with his classic album ASTRAL WEEKS being released in 1968
and MOONDANCE in 1970. While those are the biggest memories most will have
there was more to come from Morrison and this documentary focuses on those
later years.
After surviving a huge tour and then going through a
terrible divorce, Morrison came off the road unsure of what to do next. He
recorded several albums and then seemed to disappear, taking three years off
from the music business. Three years in that business is a lifetime and
Morrison had the possibility of losing his entire career in doing so. Instead
he came back full force creating more albums that featured some amazing songs
and offered some of the most heartfelt vocals of his career. The sales didn’t
equal that of what he’d done before and the critics weren’t near as kind this
time around, but as time has passed an appreciation for those albums and the
music he made have shown that they’ve lasted much longer than many of those
same critics.
Biographical documentaries tend to take several paths. The
best will use a combination of interviews with people involved as well as the
subject and mix them with both live performances and backstage moments to offer
a clear view of the person being discussed. Another is to simply show that
person onstage performing with an occasional aside to show information about
that person. This documentary chooses to take the road less taken, combining
news footage and interviews with Morrison rather than speak to him directly,
short clips of performances (my best guess is that complete performances
couldn’t be licensed from those who own them) and interviews with critics, commentators
and past associates.
The end result is a DVD that will hold your interest for a
while but as it goes on becomes a tad boring seeing the same talking heads over
and over. But not to worry since intermingled are those scenes of Morrison
actually performing. The good thing is that in watching this you begin to
remember those songs he sang, the ones that weren’t megahits but that were
actually pretty good. Hearing them brings back memories and makes you want to dig
out those albums or CDs to give them a good listen to once again. And in the
end isn’t that one of the main goals when making a movie about a
singer/songwriter, to get you to not just remember who they were but to
appreciate what it was they did?
Various albums and their creation are discussed at length
here as are the people that performed with Morrison on those albums. His quirks
aren’t glossed over and his battle with the press is even discussed. The vision
of an artists is almost always misunderstood by some and that’s the case with
many of Morrison’s recordings when they were first released. It wasn’t until
later when going back that they were fully appreciated. This DVD helps make
that clear.
Fans of Morrison will want to add this to their collection
because of the subject matter. Fans of the music from the time period will want
to give it a watch. And if you want to be inspired to go back and search
through your record collection then by all means watch this and start thumbing
through your collection.
Click here to order.
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