New York Dolls

Also, Lincoln Center posted that Q&A for Scorsese's David Johansen film, which will be on Showtime April 14:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo29mCz_X_c

xgau on the doc ("These doubts proved somewhere between unfounded and paranoid, which I credit partly to Scorsese’s skill and more to Johansen’s genius.") https://open.substack.com/pub/robertchristgau/p/just-enough-before-its-too-late-david?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

We watched at least half of that doc on TV, and thought it was fairly basic/boring... didn't realize it was Martin Scorsese.

I can't access it yet, postponing having to confront how lukewarm I am about seeing it.

i enjoyed it -- i've spent enough time musing on the three-dimensional chess game that is his interior life that i'm not gonna stop now -- but it's not for everyone. unless you have a hankering to hear cocktail lounge versions of the johansen songs from the three dolls reunion records that nobody listened to.

Finally saw One Night Only - really enjoyed it, way more than I was expecting to tbh

Xgau’s observation in that review upthread is so otm, re the Buste persona transforming anarchic New York Dolls songs into the love songs to humanity they always were deep down

Plus you really see so clearly how deliberate Johansen is about what he chooses to reveal of himself, in all of his ventures - there is a craft to it all, even among the chaos, and so seeing the personas/poses all lined up, new and archival, alongside the interviews with his daughter was really quite moving …. the whole documentary becomes a sort of zoetrope, where if you keep your eye trained & look through the crack at just the right angle for long enough you can ~almost~ see the whole person spool out before you.

And the Carlyle performance stuff is shot so beautifully <3

Yeah, I think it was Ellen Kuras- great cinematographer, and Johansen complimented her, saying she got close without making herself seem intrusive.

I just saw it and enjoyed it but thought some of it was awkwardly edited -- the way Scorsese would suddenly cut away from old footage bugged me. Sometimes when he would go quickly from DolLs rendition to Johansen solo tour rendition to Carlyle lounge version it worked and not other times. Plus to fit in with the title and theme the lounge versions are largely longer.

Tyler W posted this old YouTube link to New York Dolls at the Waldorf Astoria on Halloween in 1973. As he noted Will Hermes wrote about this chaotic over packed late starting gig in Love Goes to a Building on Fire book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQVDL-B80d0