Audience Member
I watched most of this last night, will be buying the DVD of this soon,
although I should probably spring for the full box set DVD which this is
culled from. Although of course we've yet to see a truly comprehensive
documentary on the band, although I'm sure we shall in the coming years,
this should hold most fans for awhile. Although since it's inevitably skewed towards coverage by MTV or for MTV, and therefore somewhat one-dimensional in that sense, it does a paint a compelling portrait of
the band's history, although since MTV stopped being the MTV of old
long before the band called it quits, it doesn't follow R.E.M. up to the bitter end,
although it doesn't really call then, for a follow-up film, either, since I don't
think most fans would agree that these last few are at all R.E.M.'s golden
years, by any means, not that they didn't do some good work by the time
Collapse Into Now was released, capping their career.
But since I'm one of those early R.E.M. fans who tends to champion, and hold the most affection for, their IRS Years and early Warner Bros. period,
I'm bound to be a bit biased as to coverage of those years in any case.
I'll reserve total judgement until I purchase the DVD or Blu-ray (I know this
was being premiered up at the film festival in Pleasantville NY recently,
but I had no shot at getting there, alas) and really give it a critical
viewing, but I pretty much found every second of this compelling
and revealing. The Bill Berry stuff is still difficult to watch, and it must
have been the hardest decision of his life to retire, but it was a decision
that he had to make, and did. Someone on the R.E.M. official HQ
site was saying that she didn't recall the station playing the band
until long after Murmur came out, but I was partially sucked into
seeking out the band's first two albums by, indeed, heavy rotation
of the Radio Free Europe video clip on MTV, although I don't
quite recall exactly when the video premiered, if this was after the
album came out and hit critically-speaking, or before, or just upon
release.
Since I wasn't plugged into college radio in the NY area
heavily until maybe 1985 or so (once Fables came out in particular,
and I didn't get to see the band live until then, either), MTV was
definitely one of the main venues I recall being introduced to the band,
the videos for RFE and So. Central Rain, respectively, and also
with the mighty WLIR FM radio station putting R.E.M. into heavy
rotation by 1983-84, and playing their radio taped "concerts,"
at the time, this helped cement the band's rep. locally if any help
was really required by then. But the MTV airplay certainly played
no small part in helping break the band nationally, followed closely
by the college airplay, and their extensive if not incessant, touring,
from 1983-86 which then helped solidify the band's increasing
profile by proving their worth as a rousing live unit/act. If you listen
to the old early R.E.M. bootlegs like Live at Tyrone's, and follow
their trajectory from somewhat clunky, rough around the edges scruffy party band, to the more assured combo of the Little America and Reconstruction
tours, (evidence substantially backed up by the live material now available
on the reissues of such albums as Document, Murmur, Reckoning,
and Green), one can get a clearer picture of the band's developing
maturity, material, and self-assuredness as a recording and touring
unit. This fine documentary also goes some measure towards
giving a sound and vision account of that development.
One thing that REM by MTV has going for it is, it mainly sticks to telling the
story in the band's own words and deriving from interviews, etc.
The only thing perhaps a tad irritating about it is the lack of any
full performances, given the time limits involved, and the need
to keep the narrative going, and that weird "speeding up" of the
linking music which I wasn't keen on at all, but I guess was required
to tighten the film up, or whatever. One thing R.E.M.'s music doesn't
need is to be speeded up or mastered like a heavy metal album!!
I know it's just the segment link sdktrk. but it gives a weirdly
irritating and skewed view of the band's music. If I'd never heard
the band's music I might not have cared, but in this case, I did
and it was a bit annoying. We get some commentary from key people
like Bertis Downs, and Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, but gosh,
not nearly enough, but again, given the scope and source of the
primary sources herein, it still contains enough intriguing
reportage to almost make one believe that MTV was the most
vital unit covering the band in their heyday, even if it really
wasn't (those honors going more to college radio and
some mersh stations like WLIR, WXRT Chicago, print sources,
SPIN, Rolling Stone, and smaller mags./zines such as Forced Exposure,
Bucketful of Brains, the Bob, Musician, and many others) in reality, although
of course this film is evidence, at least, that MTV was indeed,
behind the band from the early days, and took them
seriously before many other (even non-commercial) media outlets
finally would.
Meanwhile Rolling Stone would publish "world-stopping"
tidbits (perhaps goaded by the band or Stipe himself!) like Michael's
"revelatory" comment on the meaning of the upcoming album
Fables of the Reconstruction in '85: "it reminds me of two
oranges being stuck together with a nail." Or, I suppose, RS
was fully complicit in this barrage of hilarious yet totally
ridiculous surrealist-conflating b.s. by going to press with
only THAT as the text-box "preview" of the upcoming LP!
In retrospect, it might also have signified Michael (and the band's)
disdain for how the recording of Fables had gone (badly),
as is fairly well-evidenced by some of the earlier interview footage
from the first hour of this film. Fables might be one of the
periods the band would all like to kind of forget, and yet
the album and tours of the period still hold up as one
of the band's finest, if weirdest, murkiest and darkest, hours.
What Fables really sounded like was a metal plate with an ear on it
being nailed to a block of wood painted on the other side by
the Rev. Howard Finster, and you could do no better than the
spectacle of the band churning out Driver 8 live and then
following it up with a bracing version of Television's See No
Evil. And yet, when they were off in London recording,
they almost broke up. Home was a long way away. Half
A World away, etc. Fables and that tour is still (collectively)
one of my favorite R.E.M. moments/periods, ever. I knew
the band was going to break huge, and indeed by
Document, they had, for better or worse. Even if
Fables was dark, the single Can't Get There From
Here was still a pretty sizeable hit, it must be
remembered, and the video was all over MTV, of course.
Otherwise, this is clearly one of the better music documentaries of the past year or more, and leaves me hoping we shall soon get a truly epic, "definitive" documentary at some point, perhaps along the lines of Peter Bogdonovich's
fine, quite essential and revealing, nearly 4 hr. epic statement on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from several years back.
As an old school fan I can't really find much fault with
this film, it's compelling and bracing viewing for old
and new fans, although the trouble is without the context
of the larger box set, or even the 2006 IRS Years--When the Light
Is Mine collection of earlier promo videos (didn't buy this yet,
since I have my old VHS of R.E.M. Succumbs, although
I've recently read quality complaints about the Light Is Mine DVD, so
maybe we're better off watching the VHS or on YouTube?),
etc., I don't know that REM by MTV will convert any new fans, since the true primary "texts," the music, and available live performances, is not precisely represented herein in any proper way.
As a pop culture history, it works pretty well, but for the true picture of this band, one would do well to go and listen to the albums in order, the various solid collections now available, and the copious video collections now released,
all of which will provide a more multi-faceted and in-depth
portrait of this essential American band. I also bristle
at the sometime-ghettoization of R.E.M. as some
quickly-irrelevant yuppie-infested "college radio band," a narrow label they
quickly eclipsed and evolved/matured from. One could
have accused The Replacements of this and it would not
have been accurate, or certainly not through any fault (or design) of
their own!
Also, I would caution anyone who dismisses the earlier works as somehow being juvenilia, and sticks to the post-1997 or so
output as being the "real R.E.M.," as that being your
right, but I truly believe this is bound to do the band
a great disservice, and provides a very skewed,
attenuated view of the band and its history. To me,
this is as wrong as dismissing every early
Van Halen album as junk and going right to the
Sammy Hagar period and declaring that the "real
Van Halen," (its value as music notwithstanding)
although there's just no accounting for taste, I reckon. As it is, R.E.M. by MTV provides a tantalizing, if incomplete, "media public face" version of R.E.M.'s "growing up in public."
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Rockumentary of the Year. Well, it would be for me, wouldn't it?
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This took me back to my teenage years and made me fall in love with R.E.M all over again. Extensive interview and film footage spans 30 years, offering rich insight into the inner workings of the band and the special dynamic between Peter, Bill, Mike and Michael, and of course their history, the albums, etc. Impressively, the film weaves together all these disparate chunks of footage into a satisfying whole, with a pleasing sense of arc. Plenty of laughs, too. Watching this made me so happy.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
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