|
 (071125)
I have seen so many music films that it's rare
for one to surprise me. But Pavements is a glorious, hilarious, clever film
about the band of the same name, and it's uniquely different from any other one
I have ever seen. One big reason is that it often subverts the traditional
rockumentary (rock-documentary) genre. Pavements (the film) is part documentary
and part docudrama that explores the terrific indie band of the same name which
was one of the most critically acclaimed but lowest-selling groups of the
nineties alternative rock era. On one hand it's a partially straight forward
informative film about an important band. But on the other hand it's also
partially a con job about the band that delights in pulling the wool over the
audience’s eyes. In this way it is reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project or
Orson Wells’ brilliant false documentary: F is for Fake. It is surprising and
fitting that they have made such an unconventional film about one of the most
idiosyncratic and weird indie bands ever.
When they started, they were ordinary museum employees who recorded cassettes
for fun and they passed out those cassettes for free to anyone who'd take them.
When these recordings eventually got into the hands of the press, their albums
began showing up on various "Best Albums of the Year" magazine lists. Spin
Magazine’s "Best Albums of the 1990s List", ranked their album: Slanted and
Enchanted the fifth best album of the decade. However as attention to their
music increased, Pavements seemed to be trying as hard as they could to limit
their own success and prevent wide mainstream acceptance. This was also true to
a certain extent for some other groups of the era. Pearl Jam refused to make
more videos after they got popular and Nirvana turned down playing with some
giant bands like Black Sabbath when they were coming up. This self-sabotage was
an idea that some alternative bands took from punk rockers. The rational being
that unless a band takes steps to limit their success and resist corporate
dictates, they must be sell-outs.
For instance, after Pavements had a fairly successful album, Slanted and
Enchanted and the video for their song “Cut Your Hair” started getting heavy
airplay, they released the double: Wowee Zowee (my favorite LP by them) which
contains songs that sounded like they were all recorded by different bands with
no obvious potential hit single. The LP version included a blank side and the
members thought it was important to listen to it to get the full effect they
wanted. Also, reports said that on their recent reunion tour, the band decided
they were going to avoid playing some of their most popular songs in contrast to
many bands that just become traveling juke boxes on their tours. These kinds of
decisions hurt their chances at widespread success, but it endeared them much
more to their cult audience who were sick of their idols bowing down to
corporations. All of which is evident in the film.
This pushing against success ethic is evident in the band’s history with the
Lollapalooza festival, which is discussed in the film and is fascinating. Rather
than play their actual songs, the band was known for sometimes taking lots of
drugs and improvising for an hour before performing in front of their
biggest audiences ever. This did not make them any more popular with the mostly
hard rock audience that frequented the big bands of the era like Metallica,
Soundgarden, and the Ramones. They did not care for their lo-fi sound and the
Lolla' audience pelted them with mud the whole time they played. They were much
more accepted years later when they played a more conventional set which I saw
years later.
The band’s nonchalant attitude towards success generates many of the film's
laughs. At one point, the band was asked to support Nirvana, one of the biggest
bands on the planet at the time. Pavements somewhat reluctantly agreed as long
as they got to play first. Later, the film relates the time when they were about
to go on tour in Iran. However, one member did not want to go because he was
studying to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a bus driver.
The movie's story starts when Pavement’s lead singer Stephen Malkmus is
approached to participate in a typical documentary chronicling the band.
Instead, he insisted they hire a screenplay writer who would make up false info
and lies to put into the doc. Something similar was also done in the Scorsese
film documentary:
Rolling Thunder
Review.
But that film merely inserted a false sequence about a love affair between
Sharon Stone and Dylan which never happened. Pavements goes much further in
fragmenting the narrative, and it continually keeps the audience guessing as to
which parts are true and which are false, combining fiction with real music
history.
The movie jumps around between three alleged Pavement-related events. They are
at the opening of a Pavements museum exhibit, a Broadway play featuring
Pavements songs, and a big-budget film about the band. I'm pretty sure that at
least two of these are hoaxes. The director of the alleged play says he has
always wanted to do sincere versions of songs by a ironic band, and clips from
the show seemingly parody the previews of the American Idiot/Green Day play and
pokes fun at mainstream theatre’s exploitation of the alt-rock genre which they
don’t come close to understanding. The film includes clips of a ridiculous play
in which frequently the original amateurishly played songs that sound like demos
are given a big, slick, and sincere Broadway treatment. In one scene vocalists
dressed in Santa outfits sing fragments of originally ironic songs in an
overdramatic manner as if they are doing the Sound of Music. The musicians in
the play said that they often did not know whether they would play skillfully or
play like Pavements when they intentionally sounded like they could not play
well. But as their fans know, the band members were by no means virtuosos, so it
is likely many of the errors in the songs were not intentional.
One of the sequences that gets the most chuckles is the museum exhibit, because
it is the most ridiculously fake, and false part of the film. At the museum
there was a display of all the awards, they supposedly received for great album
sales. But as all real fans know they never were especially successful even
though their records never stopped selling or never went fully out of print.
That said, apart from one gold album they never really crossed over into mass
market appeal. So it is unlikely any company (they recorded for Matador among
other labels) would give them awards for selling a mere 90,000 to 100,000
albums. Even many jazz artists who work in one of the lowest-selling genres sell
more than that. Also at the museum we see that one of the exhibits displays the
toenail of a band member, while another displays a fax machine used by the band
as if it is an important historical artifact. Later, there is a display of their
clothes- which were always totally normal and unflashy-but are treated as if
they were David Bowie or the Beatles costumes which often cost a fortune. But
the band was just museum employees who did not dress particularly distinctly.
Some of the false material is extremely exaggerated and fans that know the band
got all the in jokes and the audience members at the screening I saw frequently
laughed aloud. At one point we follow the efforts of a fake method actor who
plays Markham in the big budget film who takes his job way too seriously. He
takes elocution lessons to speak like Stephen Markham, who just speaks in a very
ordinary, standard form of English. The method actor later works a shift at a
museum to see what it is like to be a member of Pavements in "real life". When
he asks museum patrons about the band, the first guy he asks has never heard of
them. Later footage from the film has lettered messages underneath asking judges
to consider it for major awards as if it were an Oscar screener which is very
unlikely and a warning not to reproduce the film as if it were a screener.
This is perhaps the most superb music film since the Wilco film: I Am Going to
Break Your Heart, although
The Sparks Brothers
(2021) came close. It is also the most hilarious music-related film since This
is Spinal Tap. I cannot think of any other film that captures the spirit,
irreverence, rebellion, unconventionality, and excitement of indie rock better
than this one. It is required viewing for alternative rock fans or anyone who
has a passing interest in the genre, and it might even convert many
non-believers who prefer more mainstream rock.
|
