Documentaries

WHO IS HARRY NILSSON… (AND WHY IS EVERYBODY TALKIN' ABOUT HIM?)

John Scheinfeld
USA 2010
116 min
V'11

The “Everybody’s Talkin’” singer and John Lennon’s self-described favorite “group” gets the full-on rock-doc treatment normally accorded to household gods like the Doors and Lennon himself. John Scheinfeld’s film traces a familiar trajectory, moving from its subject’s humble beginnings through commercial and artistic success to that inevitable rock-star decline of drugging, boozing, and bankruptcy. But as interviewees like Brian Wilson and Yoko Ono insist, Harry Nilsson did everything a little differently – refusing to cement his fame by subjecting himself to the rigors of touring and, later, galvanized by Lennon’s death, shelving his musical career in favor of gun-control activism. If Scheinfeld doesn’t share his subject’s iconoclastic taste, sticking closely to the archival footage and talking-heads formula, it’s the quality of the former (such as Nilsson’s oral autobiography) and the sense of personal involvement in the latter that elevates the film above the run-of-the-mill rockumentary. (Andrew Schenker)

Credits
  • Micky Dolenz
  • Gerry Beckley
  • Lee Blackman
  • Perry Botkin Jr.
  • Ray Cooper
  • Stanley Dorfman
  • John Scheinfeld
  • James Mathers
  • Noah Mathers
  • Marcus Pardo
  • Conrad Hunziker
  • Tom Echlin
  • Peter S. Lynch II
  • Nilsson
Crewneck Productions

IMG Media

Video (Digi Beta)
bwcol
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