Metallica: This Monster Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Man, we filmed that!” It immediately occurred to me that this footage of Metallica being interviewed by the rock press could be our framing device. We could open with the interviews, and then flash back to the beginning of the recording and therapy sessions, with more of the journalists’ questions interspersed throughout the film. The interviews would be the glue holding the movie together.
    This simple idea was a real breakthrough for us. Besides giving our film a skeletal structure on which to build, the journalists’ questions allowed us to condense basic information that we wanted to convey to the audience without relying on narration (which we hate) or straight-to-camera talking-head interviews (which we try to use sparingly). I also liked that Metallica’s answers to the questions had a “hindsight is 20/20” quality that belied the depth and complexity of the events they described (and that we filmed). One theme that runs through all the films Bruce and I have made is that the reality of any given situation is much more nuanced and complex than the black-and-white media sound bites that you see on the news. So contrasting the somewhat perfunctory nature of the journalists’ questions and Metallica’s answers with the scenes as they unfolded was a perfect structural device.
    Although this was one of the last ideas we had while filming Some Kind of Monster, I mention it now, at the beginning of my story, not just because this is how the film begins, but also because that epiphany quietly brought me full circle as a filmmaker. It allowed me to pay tribute to the people who got me started. In order to explain this, I need to give you a quick history of my professional life, rendered as briefly as I can, since I know this is not really what we’re here to talk about. Bear with me—I promise Metallica will reenter these pages very soon.
    In 1986, at the age of 25, I was working at the big New York ad agency Ogilvy & Mather. My job was to produce TV commercials for American Express. I had recently returned from a two-year assignment at the agency’s Frankfurt office, which I’d gotten because I spoke fluent German. I came back to New York ostensibly to advance my advertising career, but I secretly wanted to get out of the ad business and into the film world. I didn’t have much of an idea of how I’d enter that world, or what I’d do when I got there, but I knew I couldn’t do it in Germany. One day, at a client meeting, I suggested hiring thelegendary documentary duo of Albert and David Maysles—otherwise known as the Maysles Brothers—to create documentary-style TV commercials for American Express. I’ve always been a huge fan of Gimme Shelter, the Maysles Brothers’ (and Charlotte Zwerin’s) landmark film about the Rolling Stones’ disastrous free concert at Altamont, so when we started tossing around ideas about how to make our American Express spots different, the Maysles Brothers and Gimme Shelter came to mind.
    The Maysles Brothers were pioneers of “direct cinema,” the American counterpart to the French cinema verité movement. The basic idea of cinema verité is that a filmmaker can capture real-life drama as it unfolds in front of the camera, without scripts, sets, or narration. In an age when “reality TV” has invaded every nook and cranny of human experience, it may be hard to understand that Monster ’s style is rooted in a cinematic revolution launched in the early ’60s. Although today pretty much anyone can grab a video camera (or webcam) and capture real life, this sort of filmic documentation wasn’t possible until the Maysles Brothers—along with Robert Drew, Robert Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and Frederick Wiseman—devised ways to capture images and synchronous sound (that is, audio that is in synch with the images) in the field with portable, handheld equipment. (Did you ever wonder why old newsreel footage has no sound other than the narration and sound effects added