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Released by: Music Video Distributors
Released on: 11/7/2006
Director: Steven Cantor, Matthew Galkin
Cast: Frank Black, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, David Lovering, Kelly Deal
Year: 2006
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The Movie:
The Pixies broke up in 1993 after putting out five full-length albums and a bunch of singles. While they did manage to find an audience, their commercial success was marginal. Oddly enough, a few years after they broke up the influence that they had on the modern music scene became evident. Their records continued to sell despite the absence of any new material and while Black Francis renamed himself Frank Black and went on to have a solo career and Kim Deal started The Breeders with her sister Kelly, these endeavors would, as Black says, be 'always over shadowed by this band called The Pixies.'
The documentary begins with a brief overview of the band and their accomplishments, then talks about the unusual circumstances around the break up (Frank Black announced it on a radio interview before he'd even talked it over with the other three members of the group). The film doesn't go into too much detail about the reasons behind the split, alluding to the rumors that it was partially because Black's ego had trouble dealing with the attention that Deal was getting, instead it focuses on the circumstances behind the reunion tour. We hear about Black's solo career, Deal's work with The Breeders, how Lovering had more or less given up on music to become a magician and how Santiago was settling down with his family and occasionally dabbling in film scoring. When the opportunity to get back together presented itself, all four members saw it as a good idea but would it be the same as it was in the early days or would the bad blood that broke them up the first time rear it's ugly head again?
Truth be told, if this documentary is anything to go on it was a little bit of both. It's interesting that what makes this movie interesting isn't so much what we see but what we don't see - the four members don't talk to each other. At all. At one point all four of them are sitting backstage getting ready to go on, each doing their own thing as if there were no one else in the room. The band doesn't communicate very much and it's unusual to see this in comparison to other documentaries such as Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster where everyone is open about their issues with one another. Adding to the tension was the fact that the band, on the road together for the first time in over a decade, had no idea what kind of response they'd get. Would people show up? Would they buy tickets? Was there still an interest there? With pretty much the entire tour selling out in minutes, the answer was obviously a resounding yes.
As the band tours North America and Europe on the 2004 Pixies Sell Out Tour, we get to know each of the four band members a little bit. We see Santiago video-conferencing with his wife and kids who are back home waiting for him to return and we see him struggling with his film score. We see Frank Black find out that he's going to be a father and we see him spend some time with his lady-friend and her son at an aquarium. We also see him working on some solo material and struggling to find a label to pick it up, all while he's selling out large venues with The Pixies. Kim Deal's problems with alcohol and drug abuse have been fairly well and here we see her chugging non-alcoholic beer, chain smoking and swigging Starbuck's like it's going out of style. She brought her twin sister Kelly along for the tour, mainly for moral support and the two of them had their own bus away from the rest of the band where they worked on some new Breeders material and more or less kept to themselves. The most dramatic moments come when drummer David Lovering loses his father just before the band returned to North America from the UK leg of their tour. At this point you can see a dramatic shift in his personality and his playing (there's one very telling scene where the band finishes the song and he keeps drumming - obviously off in his own little world) and he copes by taking valium and drinking fairly heavily. Black has said in an interview with NME that this part is overplayed in the documentary and that David's substance abuse, which he did curtail, only affected a couple of shows and not as many as the movie might lead you to believe. That being said, it's still very intense material that the filmmaker's have captured here, and quite moving as well.
The filmmaker's wrap things up quite nicely (stick around for the end credits) by leaving the piece more or less open ended. Black talks about wanting to record new material but two years after this material was shot it still hasn't happened. His solo career continues but the new album from The Breeders is still missing in action. The band has, however, continued to play live to fairly wide success. What will happen next is anyone's guess, it doesn't even seem like the band knows for sure, but like the band's story up to this point, if nothing else it should prove to be interesting.
Video/Audio/Extras:
loudQUIETloud was shot on digital video and at times the 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen picture looks a little noisy but overall it's pretty strong. The concert footage looks to have been shot with multiple cameras and despite the stage lighting and the problems that it can cause sometimes on DVD these scenes look good. There's some mild shimmering here and there but no problems with compression artifacts.
The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix on this DVD is quite good with the concert scenes in particular sounding really clear and strong. The rears are used for directional effects like audience noise and the like while the bulk of the dialogue and conversational scenes come at you from the front of the mix. There are a couple of scenes that were shot 'man on the street' style that have a bit of wind noise in them but that's not really a fault of the disc so much as it is something inherent in the source material.
The main supplement on this disc is a commentary track with co-directors Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin who are joined by editor Trevor Ristow. They cover the origin of the project, how they ended up being on the road with The Pixies for such a long time and how they knew that as soon as they got the chance they had to jump at it as it might never happen again. They cover how the band members have taken on very different lives since the Pixies broke up and how it was interesting that they were all able to come back together again - part of the reasoning behind making this documentary appears to have been so that they could get a feel for each of the four individual members outside of the band and as a group unit. It's interesting to listen as they talk about certain problems that they ran into along the way, how certain members had a bit more attitude about certain things than others did and why they chose to use specific shots in the film and how they tried to capture the differences between the band members on stage and of stage. Overall this is a fairly solid track without any dead air to complain about at all. The three men cover not only the band's experiences here but their own as well and it makes for a well rounded and fairly insightful dissection of the project.
Aside from the commentary, MVD has also supplied a fairly extensive selection of eight deleted scenes that were shot for but never used in the final version of the movie. Highlights here include a strange interlude with Kim and a music store clerk, footage of Daniel Lanois scoring the documentary, an interview clip where Frank Black talks about how he was offered the lead role in a movie that Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth ended up scoring.
Also included inside the keepcase is an insert booklet with a director's statement, an essay on the band and the reunion tour and some DVD credits all of which are illustrated with some nice live and candid shots of The Pixies.
The Final Word:
loudQUIETloud isn't a perfect documentary but it is a really interesting one. MVD's presentation is quite nice with great audio and some interesting extra features that really do compliment the main attraction. Worth a look for Pixies fans specifically and for music fans in general.