*** THE SMITHS *** (The Film)

[carlos]

This week I watched a restored version or Rolling Stones' 1970 documentary "Gimme Shelter", at a small, rather hip theatre here in New York City. It's receiving good reviews in the local mags & the screening i went to was packed.

The question is: Do you think a Smiths documentary should be (or ever will be) made & released on the big screen? I'm sure every fan will immediately shout YES!... but try to think realistically & objectively... what angle would the film have to take to pull in a sizable audience aside from us die-hards? Would it have any real chance of success?

Not much marketing is necessary when dealing with bands like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles, because it has been pounded into our heads over the decades that they're the best, etc...

Do you think The Smiths will ever get the chance to "shine in the public eye" in this way?

curious of your opinions... -c

 

[Mimi]

> The question is: Do you think a Smiths documentary should be (or
> ever will be) made & released on the big screen? I'm sure
> every fan will immediately shout YES!... but try to think
> realistically & objectively... what angle would the film
> have to take to pull in a sizable audience aside from us
> die-hards? Would it have any real chance of success?

> Do you think The Smiths will ever get the chance to "shine
> in the public eye" in this way?

I seriously doubt it although of course I'd love such a film. But I recall when the Depeche Mode or even U2 movies came out they were really big commercial flops although both bands were at the height of their fame at that time. I think musical documentaries only apply to fans, I personally couldn't be bothered to watch something on Bon Jovi or something too. So if you look at it that way, the public interest in a movie about the Smiths would just be too little and you'd never find anyone taking the risk of promoting it the way you need to to get it into the movie theatres, even small independent ones....

 

[Half a Shoplifter]

Who would put up big cash to back an internationally released film on The Smiths--um--me, if i had the money! But seriously, could someone w/even small cash please make a very tight, smooth documentary that we can at least view on PBS?

The Altamont film creeped me. Especially when Jagger broke into his ego-hippie sermon of "brothers and sisters, why are we fighting--?" while rocking to sympathy for the devil while being surrounded by hell's angels while a man gets stabbed right in front of him. I guess this was the twisted twin sister of Woodstock?

> This week I watched a restored version or Rolling Stones' 1970
> documentary "Gimme Shelter", at a small, rather hip
> theatre here in New York City. It's receiving good reviews in
> the local mags & the screening i went to was packed.

> The question is: Do you think a Smiths documentary should be (or
> ever will be) made & released on the big screen? I'm sure
> every fan will immediately shout YES!... but try to think
> realistically & objectively... what angle would the film
> have to take to pull in a sizable audience aside from us
> die-hards? Would it have any real chance of success?

> Not much marketing is necessary when dealing with bands like The
> Rolling Stones or The Beatles, because it has been pounded into
> our heads over the decades that they're the best, etc...

> Do you think The Smiths will ever get the chance to "shine
> in the public eye" in this way?

> curious of your opinions... -c

 

[Mimi]

....actually a friend and I had the idea recently of doing such a documentary about Morrissey, or his fans rather. The basic idea was to interview fans around the world about the whys and whens and what exactly he means to their lives. We dropped the idea because we don't have the money to produce something like that ourselves and we thought that the interest in such a project just wouldn't be big enough - probably not even in Morrissey's camp - to find sponsors to realise it. That's a shame because our ideas were very good and we've both worked in film production before - but it's all about money, isn't it?