This week, we focus on an innovative documentary about an influential musical artist-producer and the U.S. premiere of the 4K restoration of a 2002 Australian classic, both special movie engagements worth attending in person.
It’s a sublime compliment to say that Gary Hustwit’s generative documentary “Eno,” screening at the Roxie in San Francisco this week, mirrors the greatness of its subject: musician-producer-artist Brian Eno.
Hustwit’s plunge into Eno’s creative process earns the comparison not only for its novelty—a new version of the film gets shown each time, thanks to software that rearranges the scenes’ order—but also for how it revolutionizes what a documentary about a creative type can achieve. Eno, an original member of the English band Roxy Music, successfully broke out on his own to blaze trails for ambient music and went on to produce music for David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads and others. He’s considered one of our great living musicians.
With a mountain of materials, including interviews, lectures and 1980s videos Eno provided, Hustwit dug in, establishing from the get-go that he is making a piece of cutting-edge art himself, something as organic as a musical performance and different every time someone went to see it.
The approach could have resulted in an incoherent, unwatchable mess. It didn’t. Hustwit didn’t simply do a cinematic magic trick; he made a brilliant groundbreaker about the creative process.
Many documentaries too often campaign for their subjects, with incessant praise and bouquets of platitudes. Hustwit is more intent on illustrating Eno’s intellectually stimulating process. A favorite part of the film I saw shows Eno reflecting on how nature inspires his work and fuels his belief that once something gets created—be it art, or a life form—it then goes on to lead an existence on its own, one its creator often can’t control.
There are many philosophical moments in this invigorating film as well as recording sessions and interviews with Roxy Music, Bowie and U2 while they work on the anthem “(Pride) In the Name of Love.”
“Eno” might seem like it would appeal mostly to Eno’s fans, but that’s not so. It flings open the doors to anyone interested in how art gets created and at the same time sets a new standard for future rock music biopics.
“Eno,” which debuted at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, screens July 26-Aug. 1 at the Roxie in San Francisco, with Hustwit in attendance July 27-28.
The wrenching and powerful Australian drama “Rabbit Proof Fence,” which came out in 2002, shed light on a draconian governmental policy that took Aboriginal children away from their mothers. Phillip Noyce’s gripping film loosely retells a true story about three brave girls who escaped from a dehumanizing convent and trekked through the unforgiving Outback, with a tracker pursuing them. Noyce will speak at the U.S. premiere of the remastered film at 7 p.m. July 27 at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. Tickets are $9.75 (senior) to $13.25 (general) at rafaelfilmcafilm.org.
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