Review of U2: Rattle and Hum (1988) by Nik B — 29 Sep 2009

I had seen pieces of this before, but only now have watched the whole thing. Unfortunately, my experience is tied with the years after this recording. The disallusionment of Zooropa and Pop. It must have been amazing to see this at the time, maybe even before you had a strong opinion of the band.

It's a documentary of a band becoming superstars. Every band should one movie like this at the peak of their powers. All the guys come off as enthusiastic and still wide-eyed with amazement.

Bono though, on stage, looks like a "rock star". This is a guy who knows what he's going to look like when he does this pose or that rock strut, and he knows what the film is going to look like. He plays it off like the earnest-Christian David Lee Roth. It's fun to unravel, and how much I can see Eddie Vedder took from Bono. It's weird to wonder at what point Bono looked in the mirror and thought, "Fuck this earnestness bullshit! Bring me some sunglasses!".

Mostly a concert film, and the songs included are played very well, though I could've done without the Dylan cover, or its completely fake no-rehearsal pre-show walkthrough of the song.

The real star of this show, though, is director Phil Joanou and especially, black & white cinematographer Robert Brinkmann. The B&W concert films are brilliant. The lights bleed through the film and create fully shadowed faces in its mist. If I was a bigger fan of the music, I'd probably give it 5 stars. As it stands, I'll just stand up for it as a great concert documentary.