The title for this documentary, produced by David Leaf, John Schienfeld, and Lee Blackman, kind of serves as a sad epilogue to Harry Nilsson’s life. This singer-songwriter is not a household name at all, despite the fact that he was one of the most influential and respected musicians in America. His music spawned hits for both himself and other groups who covered him. His songs are repeatedly featured in crucial scenes of films and television shows. Heck, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney even named Nilsson as their favorite American artist during one of the Beatles’ press conferences! And yet, almost no one outside of the music industry knows who the man was or what any of his songs were. Who Is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him) attempts to rectify Nilsson’s virtual nonexistence in the public consciousness by detailing his life and career.
And what’s a better way to introduce a music artist to an audience then by playing a crapload of his music? The background soundtrack that plays during the interviews and historical footage consists entirely of tunes that Nilsson sang and/or written. Through the soundtrack, you can get a sense of how great of a songwriter Nilsson was. Each song sounds fresh and unique, and they each perfectly capture the mood of the segment. He definitely had a gift of writing a good melody, and his amazing voice only sweetens the package. One thing in particular I was impressed with was the range of song styles that Nilsson worked with. You have the raucous “Jump Into The Fire”, the trippy “Coconut”, the sad, retrospective “1941”, and the absolutely sweeping “One”. Even if you have no idea who Harry Nilsson was before watching this film, you are guaranteed of recognizing at least a couple of these songs, and you will be shocked to learn that these all come from the same writer. For the most part, though, the genre of the music is quiet singer-songwriter. If singer-songwriter songs aren’t really your cup of tea, you will likely tire of the soundtrack after a while.
As for the non-musical aspect of Nilsson’s life, it was pretty interesting to watch how this former bank employee became such a prolific and renowned musician. Through archival photographs, video and audio recordings, you will get to see Nilsson’s tragic childhood of poverty and parental abandonment, the prime of his career with the Nilsson Schmilsson album, and his fall into alcohol and drugs. For the most part, it plays out like your typical life story of anyone in the music industry, but there are a few twists and turns that keep it from being forgettable. For example, you get some insight as to how Nilsson never really found a following within the mainstream audience. He was far too self-conscious to want to perform live, and he never went on any tours. Though I could somewhat sympathize with Nilsson for this decision, in hindsight, it sure was detrimental to his legacy.
I’m not really an expert as to how a documentary should be edited, but I thought that the editing in Who Is Harry Nilsson? was well-done and sufficient. The song selection was wisely chosen, the documentation used to represent the various stages of Nilsson’s life was right on the money, and the interviewees that they used in the segments spoke very emphatically about the man. Robin Williams, Terry Gilliam, Van Dyke Parks, Yoko Ono, and about three dozen others spoke about Nilsson with great remembrance and reverence, leaving the viewer with an unspoken sense as to how big of an impact Nilsson actually made among those who worked and lived with him. If I had one of gripe with the editing, it was that the segments did not always transition nicely. It was fairly obvious that the producers were following a “happy-sad-happy-sad” pattern with the segments, and this sometimes made the narrative feel broken. As an example, after a segment about Harry meeting his final wife, there was a sadder segment, followed by another segment about Harry’s wife. I felt that these two segments should’ve been combined into one.
If you are eager to discover some great music and an excellent overlooked artist, Who Is Harry Nilsson? is a decent first step. If you are at all like me, you will feel compelled to look for Nilsson’s Greatest Hits compilation right after watching this. Its traditional documentary editing doesn’t really make any courageous moves, but it doesn’t drop the ball, either. Its does what it sets out to do, introduce a great, virtually unknown artist to the masses and give him the recognition he deserves.
Rating: 3 Stars
Distributed by LSL Productions
Running time: 116 minutes
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