Even dating back to the silent film days, music has been a crucial element of the moviegoing experience. MVFF always goes the extra mile to celebrate music in film by providing festivalgoers with entertainment on the big screen and on stage.
This year, the festival will showcase a lineup of films that tell deeply personal stories through musicians, and a selection of documentaries that examine the impact legendary musicians have had on their fans’ lives.
Blue Moon
Legendary indie auteur Richard Linklater is in one of the most prolific phases of his career. He’s got one film in development, two films currently in production and two films — Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon — set for release in the near future, both of which will be screened at MVFF48.
Blue Moon follows Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke, Training Day) on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the new musical written by his former writing partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott, Sherlock), who is now writing musicals with a new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II. The film largely takes place in New York bar Sardi’s, where the closeted Hart, wrestling with depression and alcoholism, laments his former working relationship with Rodgers after slipping out in the middle of Oklahoma!’s opening night festivities. The film also stars Bobby Cannavale (The Watcher) and Margaret Qualley (Maid). Linklater’s mastery of dialogue-driven cinema makes Blue Moon a can’t-miss affair.
Brother Verses Brother
Shot on the streets of North Beach in one continuous shot, Brother Versus Brother is a spectacular rarity in that it wasn’t only filmed in San Francisco (a near-impossible feat nowadays), but dared to do it all in one go, without a safety net.
Director Ari Gold (The Song of Sway Lake) stars in the film with his twin brother and musician Ethan, who, along with the rest of the cast, play versions of themselves. The brothers embark on a musical odyssey in North Beach, strumming guitars and singing songs as they walk through recognizable North Beach locales like Jack Kerouac Alley, City Lights Bookstore, Vesuvio Cafe, Kearny Street and more. They’re in search of their father, literary icon Herbert Gold, who may be dying.
The extraordinary thing about a film like this is that it sticks out like a sore thumb amid the deluge of “content” we’re incessantly bombarded with on streaming services. This is real cinema, an unforgettable hangout movie and a loving ode to the artsiest neighborhood in the artsiest city in the world.
The Choral
World War I looms over a Yorkshire community as they find solace and unity through music in The Choral, a film about music’s unique ability to soothe the soul in the face of danger.
Set in 1916 in the fictional town of Ramsden, Yorkshire, the film revolves around the town’s choral society, whose male members enlist in the war, thereby requiring the recruitment of teenage boys and girls to replenish their numbers. Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) stars as the society’s new director, with British director Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George, The Crucible) at the helm.
Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher
Peter Asher has lived many lives indeed. The English musician, record producer, and record company executive has done it all. His hit song “A World Without Love” with his group Peter and Gordon was written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon (no big deal). He went on to sign a then-unknown James Taylor to his first record deal and produced countless classic records with Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, JD Souther and more. Oh yeah, and he became the Senior Vice President of Sony Music Entertainment.
All of that merely scratches the surface of Asher’s storied life and career, which is chronicled in vivid detail in Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher. There are few figures in the music industry who have had as big an impact, and yet Asher’s legacy in music remains underappreciated — it’s high time we give the living legend his due flowers at MVFF48.
Metallica Saved My Life
There are few artists with fanbases as loyal, rabid and enormous as Metallica’s. The band has amassed legions of fans through metal music, a genre once deemed divisive, demonic and death-obsessed but has now proven to be unifying and cathartic for generations of fans.
Metallica Saved My Life isn’t a documentary about a band and its music — it’s a celebration of the impact of Metallica’s music on not just its fans, but on the band members themselves. Interviews with superfans like Pete, who recovered from a near-fatal motorcycle accident with the help of Metallica’s music, and Shinji, who runs a Metallica-themed bar out of Japan, illustrate just how monumental music’s influence can be. For as hard as Metallica rocks, their music has always been about touching the soul, and that connection is on full display in this heartfelt documentary.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
1982’s Nebraska was a dramatic artistic departure for Bruce Springsteen, eschewing the electric, raucous energy The Boss had become famous for. It was a stark, contemplative, startlingly intimate portrait of blue collar America recorded in the style of folk, stripped down and pure. It marked a period in Springsteen’s life when he yearned to return to his roots and shed the anxiety and excesses of fame.
This formative season of Springsteen’s life is the setting for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) and starring Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) as Springsteen. The film follows his personal and creative journey writing Nebraska and navigating life in the spotlight. Biopics can often feel like slogs, but more focused snapshots in time like this film tend to hit just the right chord.
Sun Ra: Do the Impossible
There was, and never will be, anyone quite like Sun Ra. The jazz experimentalist, bandleader and cosmic philosopher broke boundaries and exhibited some of the most unbridled, free-thinking works of music ever put on wax over his near 60-year career.
Sun Ra: Do the Impossible chronicles Sun Ra’s extraordinary, extraterrestrial career as one of the most prolific and influential musicians of his time, covering the free-form jazz revolution he spearheaded with his band the Arkestra, to his life-long mission to advance Afrofuturism into prominence beyond his lifetime (mission accomplished — see Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, Outkast, Black Panther and more). Sun Ra never quite garnered the recognition he deserves, but Sun Ra: Do the Impossible aims to remedy that by painting a vibrant, interstellar image of the icon’s incomparable legacy.