It Might Get Loud

Have been looking forward to seeing this movie since I saw the scintillating trailer a few months ago. Not surprisingly, it didn't get a wide release. But it is showing once a day, at 2:30pm, at something called the Denman Discount Theater.

So the basic premise is Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White get together and talk shop, jam a little, whatever. On paper I thought it was an inspired choice, as they're all great guitar players with unique styles (distinct voices, in the parlance they would undoubtedly prefer). But in the end, it was the casting that undid the film.

Even though (maybe because) he generally carries himself like he's doing an impression of Johnny Depp acting as Jack White, White is arguably the star of the movie (the filmmakers would probably argue that the guitar is the film's true star, but they'd be deluded). He comes across as almost an idiot savant, making fierce and inspired music when he's not spouting inanities. Like, how he likes his guitars to be out of tune, so he has to 'conquer' them. In his quest to illustrate how he challenges himself to create, he gives the example (this is a paraphrase): "if it's three steps over to the organ to play a part in a song, what if i move it farther away so it's four steps away, so I have to rush over"? He doesn't answer his rhetorical question (which he manages to pose straight-faced). But one's still left to wonder what fresh genius might ensue if the roadie were to take that organ all the way up to five steps away. It's a positively Spinal Tap-esque moment, which brings to mind another scene.

The Edge is talking about when U2 were starting out, and how what they did (and what others were doing at the time) was in part a reaction to the self-indulgence of 70's rock. He cites 15 minute drum and guitar solos as basically atrocities, and while he is talking we're shown images from This Is Spinal Tap. It could have just as easily been Led Zeppelin footage, of course. The Edge then continues, "When I saw Spinal Tap, I didn't laugh. I wept. Cause it was that close to the truth". I mean, if you're Jimmy Page watching this, how do you not say "ouch". The irony is driven home (presumably unintentionally) later when Jimmy displays his famous double-neck guitar, and The Edge smiles wanly in deference to the most iconic of instruments of an era he so thoroughly dismissed a few scenes previous.

The Edge doesn't just give it, tho, he catches some too. After long and loving scenes of The Edge detailing and displaying his extensive collection of effects and processors, White goes off on a mini-tangent about how technology is the enemy of creativity. Ouch again.

To be clear, these disses are not intentional. At least not from the artists, who make their statements during extensive interviews in their homes obviously not thinking about their co-stars specifically. And probably not from the filmmakers, as it definitely does not build excitement for the 'summit', where the three greats meet, axes a-blazing, for a chat and shred session. Not that it matters in the end, cause the summit positively fizzles.

The first playing they do together has The Edge showing the other two the changes to 'I Will Follow'. They pick it up, they play it for about 15 seconds, and that's it. What? Really? Okay, just a teaser. It's gonna get cooking soon, right? Wrong. I guess it does pick up a little. During 'In My Time Of Dying', it at least seems like everybody's trying (although it plays much less to The Edge's strengths than the other's, and he kinda looks like he knows it). But it never gets anything close to inspired, and the closing "The Weight" is definitely no better than anything that happened at Trevor's bachelor party. The multiple clips of all three guys playing with the bands that made them famous are all more invigorating than the summit, and it's not even close.

Still, for all this complaining, if they came out with a ten-hour DVD version of this thing, I'd definitely buy it. Watching supremely talented and accomplished musicians talk about their craft, show their tricks, relive their paths to success, doesn't really get old. To be sure, much of "It Might Get Loud" is pure gold.

But the main hook, the Meeting Of The Masters, as it were, fails pretty much completely.