About this episode
The episode discusses a new film canon focusing on music films that blend reality and fiction, featuring various notable examples.
So we had another idea for a movie canon. After blinking our way through The Moment – the recent mockumentary about Charli XCX by director Aidan Zamiri – we got thinking about a certain kind of music film that exists between the margins of biopic and rockdoc. Not real, not exactly fake… and all the more incisive for it. We came up with a handful of movies – some of them HIGHLY recommended! – which dramatise rather than document the artist’s status as a ‘star’: their negotiations with fame and celebrity, their discomfort with being the centre of attention, their feelings of being trapped inside the machine. In our conversation about these films – including Pavements, The Nowhere Inn, Spice World, A Hard Day’s Night and Slade in Flame – we think about the irreversible vibe shift that marks 21st century humour, and identify the influence of film and TV comedy, from the Goon Show to Charlie Brooker. The canon is a slim one so far – at least compared to our adventures in Big Beat Cinema , the made-up movie niche coined by Finn and mapped out over two NT episodes and a list last year. But we’ve built a Rockufiction Letterboxd list nonetheless and are all ears for your suggestions. A…
People in this episode
Hosts: Chal Ravens, Tom Lea
Topics covered
- music films
- mockumentary
- biopic
- rockdoc
- celebrity
- humor
- film influence
Keywords
- Rockufiction
- music film
- mockumentary
- celebrity
- humor
- biopic
- rockdoc
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Moment, Pavements, The Nowhere Inn, Spice World, A Hard Day’s Night, Slade in Flame, Big Beat Cinema
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