I'm a King Crimson fan but I'm also a documentary film fan, and I was wondering exactly what this film would be like. We hardly need a sober, sensible, narrative history of the band because there are already enough of them, and sure enough, this film doesn't offer one--to the considerable annoyance of one of the other reviewers.
What Toby Amies has come up with is a film which is in large part about his effort to make a film about King Crimson. There's no attempt to gloss over the difficulties: Robert Fripp has said many times in print and in person that King Crimson has a kind of existence that's independent of any one group of people, and anyone who knows the history of the band will know of the moment in 1969 when half the band told Fripp they were leaving, and he offered to leave himself rather than have the band come to an end, only to be told that the band was more him than them.
So there are intangible things about this band (perhaps about any good band) which are hard if not impossible to capture on film. So what use is a documentary about something that only the people involved have first-hand experience of?
Well, it illustrates one of Fripp's other often-repeated sayings: that music often chooses unlikely characters to manifest itself. Fripp comes across as extremely focused on getting the music right, and impatient with anything that gets in the way of that: at one point he expresses his annoyance that talking to Amies has taken time away from his guitar practice, with the result that he's just played what he regards as a subpar show.
But in interviews with fans and bandmembers, people express appreciation for the music which shows you why people value this band so much. One fan, a nun, says that she likes KC's music so much because it's 'grown-up'. Another cheerfully recalls being hustled out of a KC show in the 90s because he ignored the no-camera rule, and yet here he is over 20 years later, still turning up.
One thing that puzzled me on first viewing was the ending, where Amies encounters Fripp in a backstage area and asks him what he missed. Fripp, in his most voice-from-the-mountaintop manner, informs that he missed 'everything'--that there was a 'pivotal scene' in which the band's history and future was presented, but Amies wasn't there, and so the film is a waste of time. He then strides off, with Amies offering a rather meek 'Thanks'. At first I thought that this was Fripp expressing lordly impatience with the whole process, but on a second viewing there's a mischievous twinkle in Fripp's eye that makes me regard this scene as emblematic of Fripp's whole attitude to the project: try as Amies might, he may make an interesting and entertaining film but he'll never get to the heart of the matter. I think Fripp is deliberately trolling Amies in this moment, giving him a suitably slam-bang final scene for the film.
I could have done with hearing more from previous members. The focus of the film is very much its final lineup, with the history being sketched in as we go. It's not the film to watch if you want to know more about this band's music and exactly what happened over the years, but it is a vivid portrait of creative people being creative. And to say a film is too short is surely a compliment. Good job, Mr Amies.
What Toby Amies has come up with is a film which is in large part about his effort to make a film about King Crimson. There's no attempt to gloss over the difficulties: Robert Fripp has said many times in print and in person that King Crimson has a kind of existence that's independent of any one group of people, and anyone who knows the history of the band will know of the moment in 1969 when half the band told Fripp they were leaving, and he offered to leave himself rather than have the band come to an end, only to be told that the band was more him than them.
So there are intangible things about this band (perhaps about any good band) which are hard if not impossible to capture on film. So what use is a documentary about something that only the people involved have first-hand experience of?
Well, it illustrates one of Fripp's other often-repeated sayings: that music often chooses unlikely characters to manifest itself. Fripp comes across as extremely focused on getting the music right, and impatient with anything that gets in the way of that: at one point he expresses his annoyance that talking to Amies has taken time away from his guitar practice, with the result that he's just played what he regards as a subpar show.
But in interviews with fans and bandmembers, people express appreciation for the music which shows you why people value this band so much. One fan, a nun, says that she likes KC's music so much because it's 'grown-up'. Another cheerfully recalls being hustled out of a KC show in the 90s because he ignored the no-camera rule, and yet here he is over 20 years later, still turning up.
One thing that puzzled me on first viewing was the ending, where Amies encounters Fripp in a backstage area and asks him what he missed. Fripp, in his most voice-from-the-mountaintop manner, informs that he missed 'everything'--that there was a 'pivotal scene' in which the band's history and future was presented, but Amies wasn't there, and so the film is a waste of time. He then strides off, with Amies offering a rather meek 'Thanks'. At first I thought that this was Fripp expressing lordly impatience with the whole process, but on a second viewing there's a mischievous twinkle in Fripp's eye that makes me regard this scene as emblematic of Fripp's whole attitude to the project: try as Amies might, he may make an interesting and entertaining film but he'll never get to the heart of the matter. I think Fripp is deliberately trolling Amies in this moment, giving him a suitably slam-bang final scene for the film.
I could have done with hearing more from previous members. The focus of the film is very much its final lineup, with the history being sketched in as we go. It's not the film to watch if you want to know more about this band's music and exactly what happened over the years, but it is a vivid portrait of creative people being creative. And to say a film is too short is surely a compliment. Good job, Mr Amies.