Birthday Party - Classic or Dud

Saw the doc tonight - you can rent it on Amazon. All of the concert and recording footage is terrific - most of it I've never seen before. The animation is, well, there - I didn't think it was particularly special, but didn't distract. What I didn't care for at all was the fake film scratching/sepiatone whenever there's a talking head on screen. It's apparent that the filmmakers were using footage from different eras (Nick Cave suddenly has a mustache, now he doesn't) and use the fake effects to give it some uniformity but it just looked dumb. Similarly, there are segments where a song is playing with lyrics and notebooks animating along, but there's never a point where the camera just holds on them. If I saw this in a theater, I'd go crazy because you'll want to hit pause all the time. Also, subtitles are mandatory.

BTW, the Rowland S. Howard documentary (Autoluminscent) is also rentable on Amazon. That one is an absolute must see. (I'd see that one first actually)

i saw it at the cinema and loved it. it was a one off screening so was packed and there was an incredible atmosphere; a real electricity in the air. i'd highly recommend watching that way if possible.

and agree about the RSH one. essential.

thirded

if you don't want to give your money to Jeff fucking Bezos for making space penises, you could even rent it from the filmmakers:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/autoluminescent

Oh sweet gonna buy that, last time I looked at their site they didn't have VOD options.

The RSH doc is also available on Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/autoluminescent

(same link!) I don't know of any non Bezos source for the Birthday Party piece.

i saw this doc a few days ago also - agree there is some great footage - esp. the studio stuff - although by the 13th live sequence featuring nick cave writhing around on the floor i had checked out a bit

semi-agree re the excess of gfx treatment but would say overall the film-makers did a great job taking material from disparate sources and shaping it into a unified whole

to me it felt about 20 mins too long? which is ofc mainly a requirement of getting it to feature length - but also perhaps reflects that TBP story isn’t thaaat interesting? they have a great sound - were clearly an incredible live force - but they don’t develop much over their lifespan and kind of grind to an exhausted, drugfucked halt

they were clearly remarkable in that historical moment and the film does a good job of capturing that - you could show it to a teenager and they would get what made the band compelling (eg I don’t think the recentish Triffids doc achieved this) - but I am not sure it manages any wider resonance beyond this specific story (which ie I think the recent Crimson doco managed to do)

Haven’t seen the movie yet, but what always fascinated me about the BP’s development is that they’re the rare band got rawer and more unhinged and less subtle as they moved towards that final implosion.