You wrote: > >I'm curious as to who on the list saw this movie (the Don Was Documentary on >Brian Wilson) and what your impressions were. > >- Paul > >---- >To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L >in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask] > As a movie, I thought it was OK. It was one of those films, I felt, that did not want to overwhelm you with the director's worldview. I thought Was appropriately figured it was Wilson's movie, really, and let him do the talking. And I don't think that Was approached the material by trying to make a didactic, cliched case about the relationship between genius and madness or some such thing. You could just as easily watch it, as I did, and come to the conclusion that this guy is largely talented and just happens to have had a tough time of it. So, on the question of Wilson. Tormented soul, to be sure. . .but "genius"? There is no question that his songwriting was far more sure and sophisticated than most or all of his contemporaries. At least some of his songs--he turned out tons and tons of tripe over the years too. But I don't think people ever notice that his chord changes and melodic sense are second-hand classic American popular music in the same sense that the Beatles and Stones were warmed over American blues. I don't mean this in critically--both the Beatles and the Beach Boys added to the respective traditions in important ways. In Wilson's case by fusing some of the older tradition of American song with a new, frothy, suburban, electric sensibility. But, just as folks in the sixties thought they invented sex, drugs and revolution, there was and remains a tendency to think that all the cultural product of the era sprang full-grown from the heads of geniuses. I don't think so. In my view, Wilson penned between ten and fifteen really excellent three-minute musical pieces--not enough for a MacArthur genius grant, in my book. Concerning the movie, though, I was happy that it included many of these very songs. Jeff ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]