Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (2019 Brent Wilson Documentary)

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

He's probably exaggerating in the film for effect. Like saying "I don't know what that even is!" with a wink and a nod.

Yeah, and the effect is that he comes across as a doofus.  And if he really does know what the instruments are but is intentionally misleading the viewer, that's a different kind of bad.

What if you got a talking head to do a segment in a documentary about Abe Lincoln and he said "Abraham Lincoln sure was great!  I don't really know how he passed the Bill of Rights and the 49th Amendment because I don't know how bills become law, but he sure did, didn't he?"

Again, I'm sure he's a lovely fellow with high competencies in other things -- why not get him to talk about subjects he does know about?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I'm probably being overly critical -- but I still think my point is valid -- why have someone talk about something on a documentary who is not really providing value?

And plus, I've said this elsewhere and I'll say it again, it does a disservice to Brian Wilson to treat what he did as some kind of magic.  I think that's what annoys me so much about the Was segments.  To shrug and say "who knows how he did it?" is a sort of "yadda, yadda, yadda" style glossing-over of all kind of potentially interesting stuff, and yes, even interesting to the armchair fan.  I don't think it's unnecessarily overcomplicating to get somebody on screen who, instead of saying "what the heck is that -- sounds like a banjo and a harmonica!", can say "here we have a piano and a harpsichord playing exactly the same thing with a lot of reverb and delay, which is what gives this track both its rhythm and its otherworldly atmosphere....  And here we have 2 flutes and a clarinet playing this high line together in harmony, which is a great example of Brian learning how to use different instruments than he used to."

I just really believe that to truly appreciate Brian's work, you have to understand that is comprehensible. 

[c-man]

A brief anecdote regarding Don Was, along a similar line to what's being discussed here (identifying mysterious instruments on a track). Back in '94 or '95, he appeared as a guest on Rockline (remember that?). I called in, got through, and asked a question about a particular instrument on one of the tracks on the recent Was-produced Stones album Voodoo Lounge ("You Got Me Rockin'"). The liners credited Keith with "mystery guitar" on that one, so I asked exactly what that was. Don asked what it sounded like to me - which I appreciated, as he wasn't going to just "give" me the answer, but rather seemed to want me to engage my ears and come up with an educated musical guess. My guess was "dulcimer", and he said, "Close - it's a dobro played with a wooden stick" that Keith had found on the grounds.

[HeyJude]

I think most beefs with the Was interviews in the doc (and I mentioned pages back that I don't think a lot of the interviews add much, and are McCartney doc-esque in that they try to sell us on the guy we already like) has to be much more with the director of the film than with Was. The preponderance of the evidence suggests to me much more that the director wanted these generic comments and decided to put them in, rather than evidence suggesting Don Was doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. Was may not be like the sharpest musicologist or Beach Boys/Brian nut, and he may genuinely have just misspoke in this moment. But I think the fact that the clip made it into the doc speaks much more to the director's and the film's limitations than evidence that the problem was that the director needed to seek out a *different* person than Was, or that Was is clueless about studio instrumentation.

They clearly did not intend this film to be a deep-dive for hardcores. Could the director have prompted interview subjects to provide less blindly-fawning-yet-over-generalized comments? Yes, and that's why I don't think this documentary is like "A" material that knocks it out of the park on any particular level.

While I think the film could have gone to greater lengths to SHOW us Brian's musical genius rather than just have talking heads tell us he's great, I do also recognize the limitations of the mainstream release music documentary genre. I don't think the director even stretched the limits of that genre, but I also don't know *how* much farther he could have gone. I think the guy in the "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" doc back in '94/'95 showing the unconventional chord change in "The Warmth of the Sun" is about as deep-dive as a 90-minute mainstream doc can get, unfortunately.

I think the film's main success is just the access they got to show us a little glimpse into what Brian is like now, what his life is like. I'd just as soon have them cut all the interviews and give us two hours of Fine spitballing stuff to Brian like a Rorschach test. 

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I think most beefs with the Was interviews in the doc (and I mentioned pages back that I don't think a lot of the interviews add much, and are McCartney doc-esque in that they try to sell us on the guy we already like) has to be much more with the director of the film than with Was. The preponderance of the evidence suggests to me much more that the director wanted these generic comments and decided to put them in, rather than evidence suggesting Don Was doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. Was may not be like the sharpest musicologist or Beach Boys/Brian nut, and he may genuinely have just misspoke in this moment. But I think the fact that the clip made it into the doc speaks much more to the director's and the film's limitations than evidence that the problem was that the director needed to seek out a *different* person than Was, or that Was is clueless about studio instrumentation.

They clearly did not intend this film to be a deep-dive for hardcores. Could the director have prompted interview subjects to provide less blindly-fawning-yet-over-generalized comments? Yes, and that's why I don't think this documentary is like "A" material that knocks it out of the park on any particular level.

While I think the film could have gone to greater lengths to SHOW us Brian's musical genius rather than just have talking heads tell us he's great, I do also recognize the limitations of the mainstream release music documentary genre. I don't think the director even stretched the limits of that genre, but I also don't know *how* much farther he could have gone. I think the guy in the "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" doc back in '94/'95 showing the unconventional chord change in "The Warmth of the Sun" is about as deep-dive as a 90-minute mainstream doc can get, unfortunately.

I think the film's main success is just the access they got to show us a little glimpse into what Brian is like now, what his life is like. I'd just as soon have them cut all the interviews and give us two hours of Fine spitballing stuff to Brian like a Rorschach test. 

Entirely fair and accurate assessment of the film's weaknesses.

[guitarfool2002]

In all fairness, who knows but the producers how many hours of interview footage they got from the various interviewees in the documentary, and as previously stated they take very little of the raw interview to edit and use in the actual film. They can shift reality into any narrative if they choose by simply choosing what and how to edit.

So I don't think Don Was is a bozo, and with a 40+ year track record of producing massive selling records and reviving stalled careers and sales figures of artists by doing so, I hope he's earned more respect than this name calling.

One thing I'll always credit Don for is the IJWMFTT documentary. He didn't go into it looking to cash in on Brian, or exploit him as so many have. He played a charity benefit gig with Brian, having not worked closely with him before, and he got this feeling that came over him and the people there that night as they played the set that was like magic. I think we've all had a moment like that either seeing Brian live or listening to the records. For me those are numerous, but one sticks out: God Only Knows in Boston during the Smile tour. I haven't felt anything like that before or since, and I know what Don is talking about without trying to define his experience from afar. You can't explain it, but it's truly the magic of this man's music to literally lift up an entire audience for 4 minutes and get them all in sync with the music and each other. Magic.

And Don Was is the one who wanted to capture that in his film, however much is possible. I think he did for some fans like me when Brian and Van Dyke are playing OCR at a piano. It's so simple, but you can feel the energy coming through when those two guys are making music. And that film came at just the right time in history. 

Anyone who can feel that and try to capture and share part of it is OK in my book. Actually more than OK, and a guy who has produced that many albums and has worked with that many diverse artists knows what a banjo is and sounds like and knows how to make records, let's be honest.

[Ptolemaios]

Few more comments I’d like to make. I understand and agree the comments and analysis made here about some of the choices in the new docu. However, the weaknesses of the let’s call it “commercial school” (or “targeting the average Joe” school) of docu making are blatant and I wish this approach didn’t dominate the BB and Brian docus. We should stop making excuses for the obvious weaknesses in the docus about the BB and Brian.

Criticizing does not mean doubting the good will of the production team.

Just on a general level of pondering when we think about let’s say movie directors we don’t make excuses for the weaknesses in their movies by going through reasons like “yeah, sure the direction in places was obviously bad, the dialogue was written as if talking to a child, and the script definitely should have been more tight in some places and maybe the totally unnecessary nudity featuring Kate Upton’s twins didn’t add anything of value to the movie. But you know what? They have to think about the commercial aspects of releasing a movie. It’s all about compromises. And even though the young lead actor was weak in the movie they were lucky to have him in it cos’ it was an understandable choice to include him as many of the younger generation are going to make a note about the director because he was in the movie.” This is not the correct way to go about it in my opinion.

Maybe criticism in the past has been overunderstanding because the hc-fans don’t want to seem like they are somehow criticizing Brian himself.

Ever since atleast the ‘Smile revisited’ era began in 2003-2004 instead of accepting in a understanding manner the weak documentaries – Beautiful dreamer included -  there should have been a strong but well reasoned push from the hc-fans towards the band’s and Brian’s camp to demand documentary material of higher quality in the vein of the Beatles Anthology series. (I am aware Anthology has been mentioned over the years many times as a model in content and quality for a potential BB docuseries and probably this idea has been in the minds of people in charge even though for whatever reason it - probably money - has not happened.) Instead we get these slightly embarrassing cavalcades of celebrity talking heads doing the “I don’t know how he did it”, “Brian’s a genius” typre of docus. I can’t help it but I find these types of docus very infantile, embarrassing even. It would have been almost comical if in the Anthology series every now and then the head of some celebrity head had popped up to say: “That Paul sure knows how to play dat bass!”, “John really was a genius!”, “I don’t know how they did it”, and so on.

On a side note. Regardless of any documentaries to me the whole “Brian’s a genius” pr-ploy is an obvious example of almost childish hype. If Brian did display genius level creativity back in the 1960’s it doesn’t need to be emphasised in that way. No thinking adult human being needs to be convinced about Mozart’s or Beethoven’s genius. I doubt celebrity heads popping up to enforce that image to the audience will lead to any average Joe watching these docus to think: “That Brian sure must be something special because the members of the elite millionare club in their mansions are telling me so.” I truly hope any future documentary will take a more mature and content driven approach to create docus that don’t rely on cheap propaganda tricks to supposedly maximize commercial value.

For reasons I don’t know no A-level director has taken it up on themselves to make a truly high quality docu of BB or Brian despite Brian’s and the band's status in popular culture. There should be someone on the level of Scorsese or Peter Jackson to handle a docuseries of the band but I don’t know if the BB and Brian are big enough names to draw the interest of a major director of that level. 

[guitarfool2002]

Few more comments I’d like to make. I understand and agree the comments and analysis made here about some of the choices in the new docu. However, the weaknesses of the let’s call it “commercial school” (or “targeting the average Joe” school) of docu making are blatant and I wish this approach didn’t dominate the BB and Brian docus. We should stop making excuses for the obvious weaknesses in the docus about the BB and Brian.

Criticizing does not mean doubting the good will of the production team.

Just on a general level of pondering when we think about let’s say movie directors we don’t make excuses for the weaknesses in their movies by going through reasons like “yeah, sure the direction in places was obviously bad, the dialogue was written as if talking to a child, and the script definitely should have been more tight in some places and maybe the totally unnecessary nudity featuring Kate Upton’s twins didn’t add anything of value to the movie. But you know what? They have to think about the commercial aspects of releasing a movie. It’s all about compromises. And even though the young lead actor was weak in the movie they were lucky to have him in it cos’ it was an understandable choice to include him as many of the younger generation are going to make a note about the director because he was in the movie.” This is not the correct way to go about it in my opinion.

Maybe criticism in the past has been overunderstanding because the hc-fans don’t want to seem like they are somehow criticizing Brian himself.

Ever since atleast the ‘Smile revisited’ era began in 2003-2004 instead of accepting in a understanding manner the weak documentaries – Beautiful dreamer included -  there should have been a strong but well reasoned push from the hc-fans towards the band’s and Brian’s camp to demand documentary material of higher quality in the vein of the Beatles Anthology series. (I am aware Anthology has been mentioned over the years many times as a model in content and quality for a potential BB docuseries and probably this idea has been in the minds of people in charge even though for whatever reason it - probably money - has not happened.) Instead we get these slightly embarrassing cavalcades of celebrity talking heads doing the “I don’t know how he did it”, “Brian’s a genius” typre of docus. I can’t help it but I find these types of docus very infantile, embarrassing even. It would have been almost comical if in the Anthology series every now and then the head of some celebrity head had popped up to say: “That Paul sure knows how to play dat bass!”, “John really was a genius!”, “I don’t know how they did it”, and so on.

On a side note. Regardless of any documentaries to me the whole “Brian’s a genius” pr-ploy is an obvious example of almost childish hype. If Brian did display genius level creativity back in the 1960’s it doesn’t need to be emphasised in that way. No thinking adult human being needs to be convinced about Mozart’s or Beethoven’s genius. I doubt celebrity heads popping up to enforce that image to the audience will lead to any average Joe watching these docus to think: “That Brian sure must be something special because the members of the elite millionare club in their mansions are telling me so.” I truly hope any future documentary will take a more mature and content driven approach to create docus that don’t rely on cheap propaganda tricks to supposedly maximize commercial value.

For reasons I don’t know no A-level director has taken it up on themselves to make a truly high quality docu of BB or Brian despite Brian’s and the band's status in popular culture. There should be someone on the level of Scorsese or Peter Jackson to handle a docuseries of the band but I don’t know if the BB and Brian are big enough names to draw the interest of a major director of that level.  

I think the issue might be that a documentary along the lines of The Beatles Anthology related to the Beach Boys might not have the material to fill such a project. There just isn't that much footage from the era, let's say from the beginning of it all up to 1976 (being generous on that cut-off year), when the band made their most iconic and influential music. And how many documentaries have fans already seen that have basically the same clips any Anthology type of project would include? Going back to Malcolm Leo's American Band, fans have had a lot of documentaries to watch. And a lot of the relatively small amount of footage available has already been included. How much more could be included?

And there's another issue: The Beatles had a definite end point. When it was over, it was over for good and they never reunited as the original four members. So how many people would want to see 10 hours of a documentary showing different versions of the touring bands playing the hits over several decades? There's not as much of an appeal there as there was to The Beatles footage, and again there was much more Beatles footage available to use and string together to make a cohesive, long-form documentary. Does anyone want to see various concert clips from the 80's that haven't already been seen? And was any truly new or influential music being made after the band became primarily a touring outfit playing hits for fans? Maybe among hardcore fans, but how many versions of the hits would other viewers be drawn into seeing on video?

With Brian's solo career, a long form documentary could be cobbled together using various footage from camcorders and even cel phones, showing behind the scenes and cel phone videos and whatnot. I think fans of Brian's music would like something like that.

But it's hard to go beyond the availability of footage showing the band in their prime. There can never be a "Get Back" type of Beach Boys project because the footage was never shot in the first place. I don't know how appealing it would be for a potential audience who isn't hard-core fans to watch a collection of clips from 1976 onward, because a lot of the output or content simply wasn't up to par.

And with the available footage, how much more can be done with it that has not already been done before in previous documentaries on the band?

On one other point: If people are asked what they think of Brian and his music, and they call him a genius or his musical skills on par with Mozart or whomever else they compare, that's entirely their opinion! Should they be told in a pre-interview or in a script not to say those things? There was an interview with Clapton done in the 80's where he was asked about the "Clapton Is God" graffitti that was showing up around Britain in the mid 60's. Clapton said something like "what did you expect me to do, scrub it off?" And that's the perfect answer on multiple levels. Was Clapton to blame for his fans painting "Clapton Is God" on buildings and walls across the UK? Were the fans wrong for saying that? And the publicity it generated didn't come from a PR firm or street team going around painting that to sell more records and boost profiles.

So if fans and other musicians are and have been saying "Brian is a musical genius", what is he expected to do, argue with them? Or order that such opinions be barred from any documentaries about him or the band? And at what point did people saying such things become part of an organized "ploy" rather than an expressed opinion?

Scorcese struck gold with both his Harrison and Dylan documentaries because no one had really taken such an in-depth look at either artist on that level. They were also, basically, the same kind of clip and interview docs as is standard, but the hook was the subjects had not been explored in that way before. Jackson had a goldmine to work with when he got the "Get Back" footage to craft a film because barely anyone had ever seen the majority of that footage for 50 years, and above all it's The Beatles. It's guaranteed to sell and generate interest, especially touting previously unseen footage that's been sealed up for 50 years. Anthology was similar in that the general public had not seen a majority of those clips before, or had not seen them since the 60's except for The Compleat Beatles perhaps. That was lightning in a bottle.

We talk about repackaging the hits on various "Greatest Hits" album releases through the years: Wouldn't it be the same if the same film clips that have been in Beach Boys documentaries for decades get repackaged in a new release?

[HeyJude]

I don't want to get too sidetracked with other docs, but I'd say the Scorsese Harrison doc was pretty disappointing. That Harrison doc *didn't* have nearly as many limitations as a BB doc/doc series would, and yet it was stunningly not very fulfilling. It wasn't awful, but for taking *so* much time (about 3 and 1/2 hours), it skipped vast swaths of interesting and pertinent story, and fell into the trap of focusing too much on Harrison's Beatles days (the first part seeming to be a more Harrison-centric remake of the "The Beatles Anthology") and only touching on the obvious few bullet points in his solo career (All Things Must Pass, Bangla Desh, the '74 tour, the Wilburys, the end of his life, etc.). I think some genuinely moving and harrowing interview clips (especially Olivia Harrison's description of the break-in/attack at Friar Park) and the occasional bit of truly mind-blowing rare footage (actual footage of Paul and George singing the dissolution papers in 1974) may have slightly obscured the limitation of the doc as a whole. I also felt like Scorsese didn't do a whole lot on it and left the bulk of the doc to a team of editors.

I point all of that out also in relation to Brian/the Beach Boys to point out how it's difficult to do a great doc even with the huge resources on multiple levels that that Scorsese Harrison doc had (plenty of archives with Apple and the Harrison estate, much more running time to work with, more funding, the backing of HBO, etc.).

I think the "commercial" considerations for the "Long Promised Road" documentary are just realities of the situation. The producers and others working on his film know the nuts and bolts of how to get the eyes of distributors. I'm not into making excuses for the doc. But certainly *some* of the drawbacks of it are a result of things that needed to be done to get the thing distributed, and to get some potential awards buzz (and indeed the Brian/Jim James song is shortlisted for an Oscar nomination at least). I think even within the constraints, the film is only okay-to-pretty-good. It really succeeds in that intimate Brian footage. The through-line on the story and the interviews are hit-and-miss. I appreciate the on-screen text very simply but succinctly explaining some of the evolution of Brian's condition over the years. But a bit more of a deep dive on that as well would have been nice.

[UEF]

It finally came to the UK last week or two, playing in some smaller, independent-type arty cinemas.

And it was beautiful. It's great to here Brian talking about things that matter to him, which sit quite apart from the "Yup. California girls."-type interviews.

Also the fact that Brian is so motivated by food warms my heart.

[PickupExcitations]

One question: there are a little baby and a lady in the end of the documentary, who are they?

[Steve Mayo]

[quote I'll keep those opinions to myself.
[/quote]


can you do that with all of them?

[positivemusic]

Finally saw this recently and I have to saw, being a hardcore fan, some of the studio and everyday stuff was cool, but overall, I didn't find it very illuminating.

I did, however, walk away with a profound sadness. It was pretty depressing, though not surprising, to watch Brian repeatedly reminiscing and expressing his grief at the loss of Dennis, Carl, and Jack.

I'm sure that it makes him come across as more human to those who don't know him or his story, but for me, personally it just made me sad. It was honestly gut-wrenching and very uneasy to see Brian react to the news of Jack's passing and try to bottle up his emotions about that, as well as Dennis and Carl's untimely demises.

[UEF]

Is there much to the blu ray extras? That’s out now

[rab2591]

Long Promised Road is the iTunes movie of the week, in case anyone wants to see it for a very low price.

[Pacific Ocean Blue]

I get the impression that Brian talks (and is 'in the room' as his attention span goes) when the subject matter is interesting to him, and that talking about broadly the same topics he has for 50 years isn't interesting to him. Brian is a rich man, and unlike most of us, doesn't have to pretend to be interested in things he isn't for money.

I kinda got that impression from him when Jason asked him about POB, he started singing parts of "You and I" and got really happy

[Pretty Funky]

Sorry, put this up in the soundtrack thread, but I think it was mentioned the footage of Brian’s return to Hawthorne High wasn’t used?

https://youtu.be/tLWhEbGMTAo

[phirnis]

Finally saw this recently and I have to saw, being a hardcore fan, some of the studio and everyday stuff was cool, but overall, I didn't find it very illuminating.

I did, however, walk away with a profound sadness. It was pretty depressing, though not surprising, to watch Brian repeatedly reminiscing and expressing his grief at the loss of Dennis, Carl, and Jack.

I'm sure that it makes him come across as more human to those who don't know him or his story, but for me, personally it just made me sad. It was honestly gut-wrenching and very uneasy to see Brian react to the news of Jack's passing and try to bottle up his emotions about that, as well as Dennis and Carl's untimely demises.

I haven't seen the whole film but the scene where Brian hears that Jack Reiley died a couple of years ago made me feel very uneasy. Seeing celebrities in such emotional moments is hardly unusual but this little episode from the doc made me actually wish I hadn't seen it.

[HeyJude]

The Rieley bit from the film was one of the most interesting and moving. It was only colored a bit by knowing Brian had surely previously been told of his death and had forgotten. But whatever the circumstances, it was a genuine emotional reaction from Brian, and really that's the thing in that documentary that makes it worth seeing (not the talking heads telling us what WE already know, which is that Brian's insanely talented, etc.).

I've been saying since the film came out that I'd rather see 2 or 3 hours of Brian having topics and songs and questions tossed his way and seeing what happens (I recall Howie Edelson describing one type of back and forth interviewing Brian being sort of like a verbal Rorschach test), more of like what we see in those bits with Brian and Jason Fine, rather than the talking heads telling me what I already know (and not even really *explaining* Brian's talent particularly well to "casual" viewers).

No more talking heads, no more leading questions that will get you "yes" and "no" answers (I'm amazed how many interviewers still go into interviews with Brian not understanding that; I'm not saying he's an "easy" interview, but there some easy things to avoid to at least possibly get better results). And yes, when Brian is comfortable enough with someone who he has talked to many times, then going a bit more "difficult" on the emotional questions can be revealing in a very positive way. The people who really understand Brian and know his deal know how to do this.

[Ian]

I think it’s been suggested that maybe Brian wasn’t informed and his website people issued the statement when Jack died without actually discussing it with the big man. It’s a little strange that a statement is given that is posed as if Brian wrote it but Stranger things have previously happened

[HeyJude]

Surely others write the social media messages, whether written in the voice of Brian or the voice of the "team" so to speak. I sense they seek Brian out to convey the gist/tone/vibe of what they're going for, especially in past years, and/or to give the "OK" to the message. Other more procedural things probably don't need a sign-off, and that's the norm for many social media accounts for famous folks.

That being said, I think the simpler answer is that Brian was told of Rieley's passing back when it happened, and he forgot. There would be no reason to not tell him back when it happened. I think it might be difficult to imagine Brian forgetting something like that, but I think it's totally plausible and I wouldn't think less of him if that were the case. Dude is 80 years old; a LOT of contemporaries and family members have passed away in his lifetime, and a lot in only the last 5 or 10 years. Also, when was the last time Brian had actually had any contact with Rieley? I think he may well have experienced the news of his death (twice) the way many of us would experience hearing about someone we haven't seen in decades but at one point had a short but intense relationship/interaction with.

I am curious to know if the filmmakers were aware that Brian had "posted" about Rieley's death, and that Brian had likely forgotten. But as I've said, his emotional reaction is clearly genuine and impactful regardless of the circumstances, so I'm glad they put it in the film.

[Rocky Raccoon]

Long Promised Road is airing on PBS (US TV) this coming Tuesday as part of their American Masters series.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/stream-brian-wilson-documentary/21858/

[Rocker]

Watch Brian Wilson produce a song | Brian Wilson | American Masters | PBS


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JOo8JH1_7A

[Rocker]

When journalist Jason Fine first met Brian Wilson | Brian Wilson | American Masters | PBS


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhYdNSbW7Yo

[sea of tunes]

I was fortunate to see "Long Promised Road" at my local art house last winter and I did enjoy it. I did have some minor quibbles with it that have all pretty much been covered ad nauseam.

My major criticism is that it occasionally too hagiographic. I found myself comparing it to the emotional beats of 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" and by comparison, "Long Promised Road" suffered, for me.

When IJWMFTT was released in 1995, it aired for a short time on the Disney Channel of all places and that's where I first encountered it. It had quite a profound affect on my assessment of The Beach Boys music as a whole. I would point to it alone as having turned me into a BW fanatic.

IJWMFTT doesn't shy away from painting BW as a flawed man, father and husband. That makes him human. And, in my mind, that's where LPR fails. Still, it's a lovingly crafted documentary that deserves to be seen.