Music on the Big Screen at the London Film Festival
For many music fans, watching their favourite musicians come to life on the big screen is an opportunity to feel more intimate with the artist and the music they know and love.
For many music fans, watching their favourite musicians come to life on the big screen is an opportunity to feel more intimate with the artist and the music they know and love. Films like this include Walk the Line, Ray, I’m not there, Control and Notorious. A gripping biopic or even a film based on a true story makes the fans feel just as much a part of the music and the stories of the people who inspired it as the actual musicians. They feel as if they can almost say “I was there.” If films like this are your thing, then luckily, the 58th annual London Film Festival is rife with music films and documentaries of almost every genre.
Twenty years ago, New York rapper Nas created one of hip-hop’s most influential albums when he made Illmatic. To attest to that fact is a new documentary by director One9, featuring Pharrell Williams and Alicia Keys called Nas, Time is Illmatic. The film succeeds in tracing Nas’ journey from a kid growing up in a New York housing project to eventually becoming one of the greatest rappers of his generation. This one is definitely worth seeing.
Continuing in the hip-hop theme is director Sion Sono’s Tokyo gangland musical, Tokyo Tribe. Based on a manga series of the same name, try to picture a more intense West Side Story but with martial arts, samurai swords and set in Tokyo.
Described not as a concert but as a project, the ageless Icelander Bjork celebrated her eighth studio album by creating Biophilia, an attempt to combine sound, technology and nature. Sounds pretty ambitious, doesn’t it? Directed by Nick Fenton and Peter Strickland, check out a film made from the project’s closing performance at the Alexandra Palace in London from 2013.
Hailed as the movement that produced some of France’s greatest house music, Mia Hansen-Love’s film Eden is a semi-fictional account of the birth of one of today’s most vibrant music scenes. Time to brush up on your French or be willing to go in for some sub-titles.
Directed by Edward Lovelance and James Hall, The Possibilities are Endless is a film based on the real life story of Scottish singer Edwyn Collins’ road to recovery and a renewed ability to write and play music after suffering a stroke in 2005. Bring tissues.
Flow is a Danish film by director Fenar Ahmad that tells the story of Mikael, a small time rapper who is suddenly discovered by a big name producer called Apollo. Sex, drugs and hip-hop are the hurdles Mikael faces on his road to success and whether or not he can keep his momentum going and his head in the game.
Austin to Boston is essentially every young band’s wet dream. This documentary by James Marcus Haney follows a group of artists from London’s Communion as they start out at the SXSW festival and continue across America in VW buses to play their fucking hearts out to anybody who will listen and the hardships that go along with it.
Admittedly based somewhat on director Damien Chazelle’s early years as a musician, Whiplash is a film about a young and talented jazz drummer and what happens when his teacher pushes him well beyond his limits and into insanity in search of greatness. This one has already been showered with awards at Sundance, certainly not to be missed and potentially the pick of the litter.
There are tickets still available for every film but not every screening. The festival is going on from October 8th-19th, click here to get yours today.
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