It probably seemed like a simple
proposition: Award-winning documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce
Sinofsky would be granted unlimited access to Metallica, underground
speed-metal band turned platinum-selling behemoth, while they wrote and
recorded their next album.
Berlinger and Sinofsky already had a
relationship with the group, having used its music for the intense Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin
Hood Hills (the film responsible for putting the battlecry “Free the
West Memphis Three” into the lexicon), and most likely thought Metallica
could make for an interesting documentary subject.
Metallica, for its part, was in need
of some extra publicity as it worked to recapture its relevance. Win-win,
right? Win-win-win, actually, if you count voyeurs like me.
Berlinger and Sinofsky open Metallica:
Some Kind of Monster with a little Metallica 101 for the uninitiated:
together since 1981, original bass player crushed by bus in 1986, 90 million
albums sold to date. In nifty, economical fashion, Berlinger and Sinofsky
illustrate the evolution of the band over the years through a seamless
performance of “Seek and Destroy” during which the concert venues get
bigger and the hair gets smaller. It’s January 2001 as the bandmembers head
into their custom-built studio, but something is rotten in the State of
California. Things aren’t coming together as effortlessly as they had in the
past, and that’s when management steps in.
Enter $40,000-a-month therapist Phil
Towle, also known as a “performance enhancement coach,” who begins to
tackle the underlying problems between singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars
Ulrich, Metallica’s two remaining original members. The brooding Hetfield’s
lack of focus is frustrating the hyper Ulrich, and they bolster their lousy
communication with snide comments and temper tantrums (the stellar camerawork
doesn’t seem to miss a sigh, sneer, or roll of the eyes).
Hetfield eventually extricates
himself from the situation and heads for rehab, leaving the selfish Ulrich and
peace-seeking guitarist Kirk Hammett to cool their heels for a year. Meanwhile,
sycophantic babysitter — I mean performance enhancement coach — Towle
continues to collect fat paychecks, unwittingly giving the newly lucid Hetfield
and slightly less-childish Ulrich common ground on which to meet as Towle tries
to convince Metallica how badly it still needs him during the recording of what
will eventually become St. Anger.
There are interludes during which we
spend time with the bandmembers while they pursue their various outside
interests (Hammett at his ranch, Hetfield at his daughter’s ballet recital,
and, in a satisfying bit of irony, Napster-bashing Ulrich selling his
collection of Basquiats). We hear from classy ex-bassist Jason Newsted, whiny
ex-guitarist Dave Mustaine, and Ulrich’s dad Torben, a bearded elfin guy who is
not afraid to point out when the emperor has no clothes.
And we get to see the audition
process as Metallica rejects a Who’s Who of rock bassists (including Marilyn
Manson’s Twiggy Ramirez, Nine Inch Nails’s Danny Lohner, and Kyuss’s Scott
Reeder) before settling on a very surprised Robert Trujillo, formerly of
Suicidal Tendencies.
It’s not easy to feel sorry for the
rock stars. Waking up at the crack of noon as Miss September skanks her way
back to The Grotto, shaking your fist at the armored truck tearing up the lawn
after dropping off your royalties, and watching 20,000 people go bananas while
you do your job don’t seem like actual problems. But rock stars are human
beings with feelings and — oh, whatever. Boo hoo. Save it for your
performance enhancement coach. And don’t forget to film it.
My
friend giggled at the word “Hitchcockian” on the poster for
director Cedric Kahn’s Red Lights. Being a bit more mature
than he is, I was merely irritated. Why is it that every movie with the
slightest bit of suspense gets compared to an Alfred Hitchcock film? Sure, Red Lights features Hitchcockish
claustrophobia, Hitchcockesque music courtesy of Claude Debussy, Hitchcockiful
tension that leaves your mouth dry and your fingernails shorter, and a gorgeous
woman driving a weak-willed man to do Hitchcocky things. But
“Hitchcockian”? That’s not even a word.
Antoine Dunan (Jean-Pierre
Darroussin) is a middle-management Parisian with a cool corporate lawyer wife
named Helene (one-time Bond girl Carole Bouquet) and two kids that need to be
picked up from camp and taken to Basque country so the whole family can enjoy a
two-week vacation. We sense trouble brewing as Antoine downs a few drinks while
he waits at the cafรฉ for Helene, and then a couple more under the guise of
getting the car ready while she showers.
Antoine and Helene start bickering
once they hit the road. He stops occasionally to sneak more belts until she
finally issues an ultimatum that results in them going their separate ways.
But the increasingly drunken Antoine
won’t be traveling alone — he gives a lift to a menacing stranger with
terrifying consequences, only to learn that Helene crossed paths earlier with
the same man.
This is Darroussin’s show. Normally a
character actor and reminding me of a Gallic Billy Bob Thornton, he’s in every
scene and deftly conveys the desperation of a man who feels emasculated by his
successful wife and tries to take control in the most passive-aggressive ways
imaginable, only to have his bluff completely and thoroughly Hitchcocked.
Red
Lights (NR) and Metallica: Some Kind
of Monster (NR) both open at the Little Theatre on Friday, December 10.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2004.
