Movie Type: Vocal Music, Interpersonal Relationships
Themes: Faltering Friendships, Musician's Life, Down on Their Luck
Main Cast: The Dandy Warhols, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Courtney Taylor
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols provides the narration for Ondi Timoner's DIG!, which documents the divergent paths of two rock bands with similar influences. While the Warhols, self-described as the "most well-adjusted band in America," sold a lot of records in Europe before achieving commercial success in the U.S., the Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by the mercurial Anton Newcombe, self-destructed in an orgy of drug abuse and internal squabbling. Timoner followed the groups' fortunes for about seven years. In the late '90s, the groups met, and Taylor forged a friendship with Newcombe, whom he greatly admired. The bands often played together, and while BJM were being courted for a seemingly surefire major label deal, the Warhols signed with Capitol. As Timoner documents, the record deal and its attendant perks marked the beginning of a rift between the bands, as BJM members seemed to resent the Warhols' success, while the Warhols seemed all too willing to rely on their association with their out-of-control counterparts in BJM to gain a certain punk credibility. Timoner focuses more heavily on the antics of Newcombe and his band, capturing a spectacular meltdown at an industry showcase, a poorly planned tour that finds the band playing a ten-hour show for an audience of around ten people, and an embarrassing drug bust on the road. Eventually, the division between the former friends reaches the point where BJM puts out a record attacking the Warhols, and Newcombe, struggling with a life-threatening drug problem, begins stalking them at their shows, either in a misguided attempt to gain publicity or with sincere ill will. DIG! won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and was selected for the 2004 edition of New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
The bearing of temperament, as opposed to talent, on potential success in the music business is entertainingly explored in DIG!, Ondi Timoner's exhaustive document of the diverse fortunes of two bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Culled from a mind-boggling amount of footage, which Timoner gathered over seven years while following the bands almost from their formations, DIG! isn't as concerned with differences in the groups' musical styles (few songs are heard for more than a few bars at a time) as it is with personalities and interpersonal conflict. In this regard, it echoes the purportedly superficial concerns of the fickle industry it depicts, and it's not entirely clear whether this is Timoner's intent. Still, what she does choose to show contains undeniably engaging drama. There is a brief period during which the band leaders, Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols and Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, are on good, mutually admiring terms, and each appear to have a bright future. While the Warhols quickly get signed to a major label, the dementedly demanding Newcombe implodes at an industry showcase over the perceived musical inadequacies of his bandmates. This leads to a startling total meltdown on-stage, as band members quit in mid-set, and the hostilities get physical. Timoner captures more than a few such moments in this engrossing saga, and through such painful (though frequently darkly funny) detail, the film is successful in documenting how Newcombe's personal obsessions and failings derail his surefire musical career. But in presenting the self-proclaimed "most well-adjusted band in America," as a counterexample, complete with Taylor's self-promotional narration, Timoner makes Newcombe seem more responsible for his own failure in the industry than he may actually be. In the end, the music should matter more than it apparently does. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Cast
The Dandy Warhols
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Courtney Taylor
Anton Newcombe
Credit
Tim Rush - Associate Producer, Vasco Lucas Nunes - Co-producer, David Timoner - Co-producer, Ondi Timoner - Director, Ondi Timoner - Editor, The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Composer (Music Score), The Dandy Warhols - Composer (Music Score), Kim Randall - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ondi Timoner - Cinematographer, Vasco Lucas Nunes - Cinematographer, David Timoner - Cinematographer, Ondi Timoner - Producer
Newcombe argues that the documentary was unfair in its portrayal of him.[citation needed] On the band's official website, Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman Anton Newcombe publicly denounced the film as reducing several years of hard work to "at best a series of punch-ups and mishaps taken out of context, and at worst bold faced lies and misrepresentation of fact." The story leaves one with the impression, by using Courtney as a voice over, that Anton and his band were no longer a band. There was no update regarding Anton at the time of release. [1]
Compiled from 2,000 hours of footage and narrated by Courtney Taylor, DiG! follows the underground artist Anton Newcombe, promoting him as one of the more important (during the film, Newcombe claims to be able to play over eighty musical instruments) yet comparatively unnoticed artists of our time.
In 1996, Anton Newcombe and his band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre – who in a decade independently released 11 albums, 3 recorded in one year – are hell-bent on staging a revolution in the music industry. They are convinced their friends, The Dandy Warhols, will join them to create a united front. But Anton destroys multiple opportunities for financial success, either because of drugs, or because he does not conform to record labels expectations.
While tracking the unpredictable and intense idealism of Anton Newcombe and his alternately creative and destructive path with The Brian Jonestown Massacre, DiG! also accompanies the more well-adjusted Warhols through their leader Courtney Taylor, as they navigate the corporate sea, trying to maintain their creative edge while starring in large music videos and entertaining crowds in the tens of thousands.
The Dandy Warhols' and The Brian Jonestown Massacre's friendship gradually grow further apart as Anton's destructive nature and insistence on artist independence creates tension between the two bands.
