Feature Dvd - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco
The Age
Thursday April 17, 2003
DVD review: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film about Wilco, (Cowboy Pictures/Soundproof), (92 minutes plus 70 minutes of extras) NR ****?
The converted Wilco fan won't need arm-twisting to buy this handsome documentary. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart was made by first-time filmmaker Sam Jones; he was granted the sort of intimate access that every fan dreams of in their Almost Famous fantasies. But the events that transpired during filming transformed it into an epic rock'n'roll documentary. The band is in a state of turmoil; the drummer has just been dismissed, in the middle of recording the acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. As the action unfolds, the tension between Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy and multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, who'd been central to the band's experimental directions, escalates until Bennett, too, is sacked. As Wilco regroup to record, it transpires that their record company, Reprise, are less than happy with the results. What follows is the familiar impasse between art and commerce, with the twist of a happy ending: Wilco walk away from the wreckage with a better record deal (ironically, with another division of the same corporation, AOL Time Warner) and integrity intact. The unexpectedly mythic dimensions of the story are a paradigm of artistic intelligence in a dumbed-down, corporatised music business. Newcomers to Wilco will likely be converted by the sheer beauty of watching their music come into creation amid an utter lack of self-consciousness. The grainy black-and-white footage has the effect of classicising Wilco's performances, particularly in the case of Tweedy, who has an arresting on-screen charisma. Even when he's puking into a toilet bowl it's near impossible to take your eyes off him. A compelling film that reinvigorates the status of the rock documentary and offers a rock'n'roll story to believe in. Extras include 17 bonus songs, alternate versions, live footage, unreleased songs, commentary from the band director and a behind-the-scenes featurette. -- Sophie Best
F: F: 1xDVD9 and 1xDVD5 A: Dolby Digital V: 1.85:1
© 2003 The Age