Music

What documentary must-see to know everything about the brilliant Brian Wilson?

Shattered creative soul of the marvellous Beach Boys, the legendary musician well deserved this film at his height.  

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Love & Mercy returned in 2014, with a classic but successful biopic, on the trajectory of Brian Wilson, creative engine of the Beach Boys considered one of the greatest groups in the history of pop, as cult as it was popular. To better understand the complexities of its development, which owes everything to its main composer, a documentary was essential. The journalist Christophe Conte, already the author of excellent films devoted to the Kinks and the Who and of formidable books on Nino Ferrer, Etienne Daho and more recently Alain Bashung, casts his fine, sensitive gaze on his subject. It carefully traces the evolution of a group whose beginnings gave no indication that it would come of age. These sympathetic (although more sophisticated than appearances suggest) surfing hymns, convertible cars and California Girls, soon gave way to unalterable, almost irrational splendours of beauty, such as God Only. Knows, Caroline, No, the incredible Good Vibrations, the heartbreaking Surf's Up or 'Til I Die? An investigative tale, produced for Arte, as part of their excellent summer series Summer of Brothers and Sisters. This one focuses on the brilliant Brian, tormented at least as much by a contrasting childhood as by the abuse of psychotropic substances, in particular LSD, which has, and it is an understatement, durably modified an already precarious mental balance. His ex-wife, admirers, journalists (including the excellent Michka Assays, connoisseur of the work of the Beach Boys), musicians who participated in the group's recordings, including Al Jardine who was one of the founding members, look back on Brian's life. He himself intervenes, and even if it is very painful to see him thus vaguely absent, lost who knows where (but certainly not a place where one would like to live), his word remains precious. Marked by the outbreak of the Beatles, another fundamental group of the time, whose records inspired Wilson as much in panic jealousy as in pathological competitive spirit. Brian only moderately enjoyed his aspiration to reinvent the pop world, leading his group towards "pocket symphonies" of incredible melodic and harmonic complexity, with lyrics flirting with Dadaist abstraction, or frankly embracing melancholy tones illustrating his dark thoughts with a swirling Technicolour. A moving exploration of a work that looks like a splendid cathedral - haunted crypts included. For fans, it is a generous open door to discover fabulous songs (literally) in this gift od a fascinating, moving documentary.

Brian Wilson. The impeded genius of the Beach Boys. Documentary by Christophe Conte (France, 2023, 52 minutes) Broadcast on Arte on July 21 at 10:30 p.m. On arte.tv from 07/14/2023 until 08/19/2023

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Brian Wilson. Credit: Getty Images.
The Beach Boys. Credit: Getty Images
The Beach Boys. Credit: Getty Images

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