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Rockumentaries at SXSW

According to Pitchfork, South by Southwest Film will screen a number of new rock documentaries, or “rocumentaries,” a recurring focus of my posts here at Work + Play. (For the record, I’m considering an about face on the term “rockumentary.” I used to like it. Now it’s starting to feel like “edutainment” feels.)

Rock documentaries to be screened at SXSW include:

Shine a Light – The latest filmic work from Martin Scorcese, director of seminal rock documentary The Last Waltz and Dylan “rockdoc” (better than “rockumentary?” Worse?) No Direction Home. The subject of the film: late-period Rolling Stones. Yikes.

Joy Division – Last I read, the Grant Gee-directed documentary had no U.S. distribution date scheduled—not in theaters, not on DVD. I’ve had it in my Netflix cue since autumn 2007. I’m thinking it will be worth the wait, but I’d rather not wait much longer. If you see it at SXSW, let us know what you think.

The Night James Brown Saved Boston – This one looks fascinating. A document of the events of April 5, 1968, the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. James Brown went ahead with his televised concert at the Boston Garden and, in the eyes of some, saves Boston from the fate of other American cities that burned that night. Family lore has my father heading to a Smokey Robinson concert that night and then turning around for home when news of the assassination—and the response on Chicago’s West Side—broke. I looked for evidence of whether or not Smokey was scheduled to play that night, and whether or not he went ahead with the show, but came up empty handed. Whatever the case, Chicago wasn’t saved that night. Not entirely, anyway.

Wesley Willis’ Joyrides – Chicago music fans know about the late Wesley Willis, but they often don’t know how they feel about him. The ambivalence seems to be rooted in uncertainty over whether Willis was a brilliant outsider artist expressing himself to fans who loved him, or an exploited, mentally challenged man who performed for audiences that mocked him with their adulation. Maybe Joyrides can answer the questions of who Wesley was and how we should feel—and should have felt—about him.