Filmes
PRESS, THE STUPID SIDE OF MUSICALS
SHINE A LIGHT is the new film by Martin Scorsese. The documentary about the veteran Rolling Stones doesn’t say much more than the great fuzz it caused at the opening night of the 58th Berlin Festival. In the beginning we see the director preparing the shooting, as nervous and well humored as a Woody Allen. Along the musical we see the Rolling Stones full of energy on stage. In between songs Scorsese searches for filling using old interviews of the British band, contemporary of the Beatles, all over the world.
The selection of interviews shows how each member of the band worked on his irony during all this time. But it is the main proof of how stupid the press usually is when facing pop culture icons. As the press has nothing special to ask, nothing special is said.
Being shown on the same opening day of the festival, SHINE A LIGHT was compared to another American musical, this one activist and political – CSNY – DÉJÀ VU, by Bernard Shakey, who ends up being the pseudonym of pacifist singer and composer Neil Young. CSNY – DÉJÀ VU proves that there is intelligent life in the USA. And also many journalists who are more than stupid – but also angry, virulent and eager to react negatively to any opinion against establishment. Neil Young reunites in his film the original musicians of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, formed over 40 years ago, for a new American tour with the “Freedom of Speech” concert. Freedom of speech is something we see missing in Bush’s America. The group tours comparing current times to what they have already lived fighting against the Vietnam war. “There was more mobilization for a cause at the time, we now live under a dictatorship”, declares David Crosby in the film.
When they perform a song that asks for Bush’s impeachment, because he lied repeatedly to the world to create the war against Iraq, many in the audience leave indignantly. But most people stay and sing along. But the most shocking is that most of the press attacks the return of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Articles on all kinds of media are ironically reproduced in the film. For the concert preaches the freedom of saying and thinking whatever one wants to. Not what is prompted by war industry. We are back to Neil Young at the time of HEARTS AND MINDS, Peter Davis’s film, from 1975, that was a landmark at the time for its activism against war in Vietnam. We hope CSNY – DÉJÀ VU can have the same effect.
More Berlin Festival at http://www.berlinale.de
English version: Laura Rebessi