By Steve Sailer
06/21/2022
Tom Stoppardâs 2006 play Rock ân Roll is a rather austere work about the early 1960s Pink Floyd of the Syd Barrett era rather than the Dark Side of the Moon or âComfortably Numbâ eras and the Czech dissident band Plastic People of the Universe. It really only ignites at the end of the first act when the Czech dissidents listen to the Beach Boysâ ethereal âWouldnât It Be Nice.â
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Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was born just days after his archrival Paul McCartney of the Beatles. Hereâs my review of the 2015 biopic Love & Mercy:
Life of Brian
Steve SailerJune 10, 2015
Love & Mercy is a superb new biopic about head Beach Boy Brian Wilsonâs creative summit in 1966, the year of the groundbreaking Pet Sounds album (featuring the sublime âWouldnât It Be Niceâ and âGod Only Knowsâ) and follow-up âGood Vibrationsâ mega-single, the greatest Southern California track ever constructed. The film follows Wilson briefly into his rapid collapse into mental illness and obesity, and then skips to his slow but gratifying recovery in the early 1990s.
This may not sound particularly promising, in part because musical biopics are out of fashion. Further, the Beach Boysâ family melodrama is familiar from two TV movies plus the thousands of interviews Wilson has done over the decades to promote the legend.
Moreover, it sounds gimmicky that two actors who donât look much alike were cast as young Brian (moonfaced Paul Dano, who may be best known as the preacher in There Will Be Blood) and old Brian (John Cusack, whose career also peaked at age 23 when he held up the boom box in Cameron Croweâs Say AnythingâŚ). But then again, Wilsonâs face matured unexpectedly from chubby innocence to weathered ruggedness.
In fact, Love & Mercy resembles two separate movies interwoven, with distinct casts and color palettes: Young Brian seemingly lives in David Hockneyâs Hollywood Hills swimming-pool paintings, while old Brian inhabits the muted, blue-gray June Gloom color scheme that took over early-1990s movies.
Another legitimate concern is that itâs an authorized biography, with the subjectâs current wife having much input over script and casting. Melinda Wilson chose Elizabeth Banks to play herself, the Cadillac saleswoman whose love rescues a fortysomething Wilson from enslavement to his quack psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti). But Mrs. Wilsonâs self-image doesnât make use of Banksâ sardonic alpha-blonde sense of humor, currently on display in her hit Pitch Perfect 2, which she directed.
In partial defense of the megalomaniacal Dr. Eugene Landy, his â24-hour therapy systemâ â basically, having a glowering bodyguard hover around Brian â did reduce the quantities of drugs and hamburgers Wilson could wheedle out of fans and fellow celebrities who couldnât help liking the overgrown kid no matter how many times heâd let them down. But much like with Britney Spears and her parasitical keeper a half-dozen years ago, Landy kept his meal ticket dependent upon his prescription medicines.
Finally, the Beach Boys have long divided fans of 60s rock into three camps, at least since the band suddenly became unhip when they failed to show up to headline the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which wound up being dominated by Jimi Hendrix. There are those who love them for their early hits about Californiaâs golden age of surfing and cars (such as âI Get Aroundâ and âFun, Fun, Funâ); those who dismiss them for these early hits; and finally those, often musicians and writers, still agog over Wilsonâs 1966 peak, which motivated the Beatles into striking back the next year with Sgt. Pepper.
Veteran movie producer-turned-director Bill Pohlad, son of the late billionaire owner of the Minnesota Twins Carl Pohlad, is firmly in the third camp. And Iâd say he has now won the three-way debate, and in the best way possible: by making a work of art about how Wilson made his finest works of art. Few musical biopics before this rich manâs labor of love have paid as close technical attention to what went on in the studio, which, after all, is really why we care about Wilson.
Dano is tremendous as the 23-year-old Brian, a seemingly guileless musical savant who just wasnât made for these times. Yet Wilson responds to the challenge posed by the Beatlesâ 1965 Rubber Soul album by disappearing for half a year into the studio, where he commands a crew of ace studio musicians in expanding the limits of sound. My only complaint about Danoâs performance is that the movie star isnât quite as good-looking as his subject. Part of Wilsonâs appeal has always been the irony that heâs this huge all-American galoot who is emotionally sensitive to the point of fragility.
Itâs perhaps not coincidental that the two prime American inventors of the âstudio as instrumentâ concept both went nuts: Wilsonâs idol Phil Spector turned bad crazy after his âRiver Deep, Mountain Highâ failed to catch on in 1966, and Brian Wilson went sad crazy trying to record Smile in 1967.
But in the meantimeâŚWilsonâs Late Protestant religious music inspired the Beatlesâ Sgt. Pepper.
Read the whole thing there.
