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Released by: Breaking Glass Pictures
Released on: July 16, 2013.
Director: Sylvia Caminer
Cast: Rick Springfield, Linda Blair, Corey Feldman
Year: 1978
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The Movie:
Sometimes, when I have a bit too much to drink, I fucking LOVE Rick Springfield. Sure, I can only sing along to a few songs but when it happens, it happens. The next morning might hurt, it might be full of shame and regret, but inevitably the next time I've had a few beers and Jesse's Girl comes on the inevitable rock out occurs. You can count on it like clockwork. At the same time, I've never really been a Rick Springfield fan, at least not sober. So when An Affair Of The Heart showed up in the mail for review, it was promptly pushed to the side. Eventually other discs landed on top of it and it got forgotten about. But clockwork being regular and all, eventually late one night, three sheets to the wind, the urge hit and the Rickumentary by director Sylvia Caminer found its way into the Blu-ray player, much to the dismay of my wife who was trying to sleep at the time.
But enough about me. This isn't about me, this is about Rick and more specifically, about the strange, almost Christ like relationship that he has with his fans. Yes, I said Christ like, and I meant it. As this documentary plays out we meet a lot of middle aged women who loved Rick Springfield during his eighties heyday, when songs like Jesse's Girl, Don't Talk To Strangers and I've Done Everything For You were all over the radio and setting hearts aflutter. We get to learn about Rick's career, about how he wound up on American shores from his native Australia and how he wound up a recording star and a soap opera star - this information is here. But this is not, as you might think, a biography piece.
Rather, the focus here is on those who love Rick. Yes, many of them are the aforementioned middle aged ladies but if they make up the bulk of his fan base they don't make up the entirety. Here we meet a kid whose dad got him into Rick and who has taken to the guitar like a fish to water thanks to Rick's influence. They got to know each other and at one point the kid even gets to go on stage and play with his idol. We meet two husbands whose wives' have such a serious obsession with Springfield that they decide they need to meet the man for themselves, just to make sure nothing funny is going on. It's not. Rick's friendly and understanding when they show up unannounced. One of these guys is a pretty big dude too, he used to play in a hardcore band, but you know what? Rick wins him over. And he'll win you over too.
Celebrity cameos from Linda Blair, who had an affair with him, and Corey Feldman, who made a bad movie with him, are here. Mark Goodman from MTV's prime is here too, with some input on the man and his music. They're amusing and fun to watch. It's the stories from the fans that make up the heart of the film though. Sometimes they go on boat cruises with him, this allows them a more intimate setting in which to experience all that is Springfield, causing one observer to note that 'he's a thin guy with long hair, it's weird seeing him wade in the water and having his fans come to him' - which is true. There's footage of that here and it is weird. We also learn how Rick's music inspired one woman to overcome some medical issues and we learn how a minister in the Unitarian Church was gang raped and used Rick's music to get over her anger issues that stemmed from the assault. That sounds weird, right? It is. But these people seem completely sincere in their testimonies and equally sincere is Springfield in the love he seems to completely reciprocate towards them. The fact that he not only tolerates these fans but actually goes out of his way to let them know how much he appreciates them means that Springfield winds up coming across as a seriously nice guy and that goes on to make this so much easier to stomach.
This could have turned out to be nothing more than ninety minutes of fan worship, a freakshow of obsessive types who worship at the Temple Of The Working Class Dog pining away for the days of their youth. It's not. It's a movie about relationships - strange relationships, to be sure -but relationships all the same, the kind that make us human and that make humans as a species interesting. And if that's not enough? Well, a few beers in and you'll be singing along to every song in the movie, so it's got that going for it too.
Video/Audio/Extras:
A lot of An Affair Of The Heart was shot on the road under differing conditions so some fluctuations in picture quality are to be expected but overall the AVC encoded transfer, which is framed at 1.78.1 widescreen, looks fine. The movie was shot on digital video so the image stays clean, obviously there are no print damage issues. Colors look nice, detail is pretty crisp and while there are some minor source related digital compression issues, all in all the movie looks really nice in high definition.
Also very impressive is the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that does a really good job of spreading the music around and filling the room without burying the dialogue in the various interviews that make up much of the movie. There are no issues with hiss or distortion and the levels are nicely mixed as well. An optional LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix is also found on the disc and removable English subtitles are also included.
Extras? Yep, lots of them. First up is a collection of eight extended scenes that take some of the more interesting clips from the feature and present them in their longer, uncut form. There's about half an hour or so here, as we learn about everything from Rick's attempt to take his own life during a down period to how Swedish death metal fans prepare for a Springfield show. Great stuff. Also quite fun are the bonus Interviews. Here we get unabridged conversations with Blair and Feldman (who seems to live on his own planet these days) but also some more bits and pieces with Rick and with some of the more eccentric fans - we're talking about almost an hour's worth of extra content in this section, and almost all of it is actually interesting which is always a nice surprise when evaluating extras on a release like this.
Aside from that we get clips from three different festival screenings of the movie that run a combined total of a half an hour, we get a still gallery, a trailer for the feature, trailers for a few other Breaking Glass Pictures releases, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
If this documentary were only ten minutes long and was nothing but a clip of Rick Springfield playing in front of a crowd of European metalheads hungry for Slayer, wowing them by coming out into the crowd, going nuts and climbing the scaffolding it would be great. As it stands, this documentary is that and a whole lot more. It's fascinating, it's genuinely touching and it's often times both hilarious and bizarre. On top of that the presentation is great and there's a load of extra stuff here that's just as interesting as the feature itself. Give it a shot. Have a few beers first if you must, but give it a shot. Mark my words, I say this without a trace of irony - if you don't already then you too will fucking love Rick Springfield after you see An Affair From The Heart. It's not just good, it's great. An unexpectedly awesome surprise and a genuinely fascinating movie.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
And a trailer!
And a trailer!
