Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing - DVD Review
Different movies are important for different reasons, and documentaries are different from regular movies. A good documentary will inspire, show you the other side, lead you by the hand through an issue or event and hopefully do so with enough intelligence that when you come through the other side you can make up your own mind about the issue at hand. Thats how I feel anyway.
Shut Up and Sing (1996) is, at my most cynical, an excellent 90 minute commercial for their latest studio album, Taking The Long Way, which has since it's release gone 2x platinum.
But as someone who was never a fan of country music and therefore not bothered by the Chicks' controversy, at least in its earlier stages, I didn't go into this film as a staunch supporter of the band. The cause they represent in the film, freedom of speech, is important to me as a writer. The story of the Chicks was, well, another story.
This film was first and foremost edited so well! We zig-zag back and forth through time from the early days of lead singer Natalie Maines' comments about G.W. Bush at a 2003 concert in London, to the fallout a year and two later, to the writing, recording, and eventual touring in support of the album meant to redeem them in 2006.
What's good about having a great editor for your doc is that people remain interested enough in the subject matter to keep an open mind all the way through. Too often documentaries are filled with lulling moments of dull introspection and talking head revelations that ultimately contribute nothing to the project. What works so well here is that there is nothing extraneous about this project. Every moment we spend with the Chicks is used with purpose. Every candid clip advances the emotional agenda of what is for most people an emotional topic. The freedom to speak one's mind is taken for granted by too many people, myself included. I don't have spin doctors telling me the most effective way to phrase an insult so as to achieve the greatest injury to someone elses reputation. Politicians have such spin doctors, and so does big media.
In a war of honest discourse versus expensive propaganda, the money always seems to win.
But now let me give them their props.
Not only do they come off in the film as good, sweet, strong ladies with big ol' brains in their beautiful heads, but they come off as human. The way they stand together as an unquestionably united front and never just 'shut up and sing' is so inspiring and empowering for the everyday guy like me. It was their integrity and willingness to take risks in the face of such baffling opposition that made me appreciate them for what they went through. And I wanna thank them for it, cos they took a lot of shit.
And if to some the film is nothing more than a glorified commercial for their album, well, it's a great fucking album. If you don't agree with their politics you gotta agree with their talent.
But really; history has acquitted them anyway, so why should they worry?
DVD extras are sparse, but the film speaks for itself so I don't think any are necessary.
The film is The Dixie Chicks: Shut Up And Sing
The album is Taking The Long Way
Check em both out.
Shut Up and Sing (1996) is, at my most cynical, an excellent 90 minute commercial for their latest studio album, Taking The Long Way, which has since it's release gone 2x platinum.
But as someone who was never a fan of country music and therefore not bothered by the Chicks' controversy, at least in its earlier stages, I didn't go into this film as a staunch supporter of the band. The cause they represent in the film, freedom of speech, is important to me as a writer. The story of the Chicks was, well, another story.
This film was first and foremost edited so well! We zig-zag back and forth through time from the early days of lead singer Natalie Maines' comments about G.W. Bush at a 2003 concert in London, to the fallout a year and two later, to the writing, recording, and eventual touring in support of the album meant to redeem them in 2006.
What's good about having a great editor for your doc is that people remain interested enough in the subject matter to keep an open mind all the way through. Too often documentaries are filled with lulling moments of dull introspection and talking head revelations that ultimately contribute nothing to the project. What works so well here is that there is nothing extraneous about this project. Every moment we spend with the Chicks is used with purpose. Every candid clip advances the emotional agenda of what is for most people an emotional topic. The freedom to speak one's mind is taken for granted by too many people, myself included. I don't have spin doctors telling me the most effective way to phrase an insult so as to achieve the greatest injury to someone elses reputation. Politicians have such spin doctors, and so does big media.
In a war of honest discourse versus expensive propaganda, the money always seems to win.
But now let me give them their props.
Not only do they come off in the film as good, sweet, strong ladies with big ol' brains in their beautiful heads, but they come off as human. The way they stand together as an unquestionably united front and never just 'shut up and sing' is so inspiring and empowering for the everyday guy like me. It was their integrity and willingness to take risks in the face of such baffling opposition that made me appreciate them for what they went through. And I wanna thank them for it, cos they took a lot of shit.
And if to some the film is nothing more than a glorified commercial for their album, well, it's a great fucking album. If you don't agree with their politics you gotta agree with their talent.
But really; history has acquitted them anyway, so why should they worry?
DVD extras are sparse, but the film speaks for itself so I don't think any are necessary.
The film is The Dixie Chicks: Shut Up And Sing
The album is Taking The Long Way
Check em both out.
posted by johnnykocktail at 11:04 pm
2 Comments:
There's a great independent documentary on this Dixie Chicks incident titled, "Protesting the Dixie Chicks" which is based on interviews and events outside the Dixie Chicks 2003 tour. It certainly reaches a deeper ideological plane than "Shut Up and Sing" which was more of a Hallmark/Lifetime movie for me. This independent film's direction is more in the mind of Errol Morris or Spike Lee -- it definitely shows the dark side of partriotism.
There's clips of it on youtube and these links
http://www.protestingthedixiechicks.com
http://myspace.com/protestingthedixiechicks
Hey! Check out my post about the Oscars... hope you can participate!
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