Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Blogs & Message Boards More...
- Ohio politics: Morgan, Yost get TV ads ready in GOP auditor's race
- Flyer Connection: University of Dayton sports: Rutgers job doesn't interest Gregory
- Chatterbox: Are homes selling in your neighborhood?
- Preps Plus: Mason football player chooses college
- Wright State University sports: New WSU recruit to face future teammate in...
|
Isaac Hayes in "Only the Strong Survive."
Grade: B-
Verdict: More a sound bite than a whole song.
By EILEEN M. DRENNEN
(none)
Welcome to Memphis radio station WDIA, where the Rufus and Jaye show is in full swing. It's 1999 and the great soulman Rufus Thomas -- the "other King of Memphis" -- is, at 82, still on the radio, still sassy. The music they're spinning is the soul classic "Dark End of the Street," sung by the late James Carr. Their banter is funny and rooted in Memphis, including a promo for an upcoming fund-raiser where Thomas will perform, also captured in the new documentary "Only the Strong Survive."
Onstage, he does his 1960s hits -- including "Walkin' the Dog" and "Night Time Is the Right Time" -- with the ease of a much younger man, his voice as fit as his unlined face. And when he caps his set with a respectably wild hip-swivel, you sense Thomas has not only survived, he's never been happier.
Catching up with still-vital soul legends who have kept on keepin' on since their '60s fame -- including Wilson Pickett, Sam Moore, Ann Peebles -- is but one of this documentary's joys. (Seeing Thomas, who died in December 2001, is especially moving.)
But as a movie, "Only the Strong Survive" is a bit too herky-jerky. Director D.A. Pennebaker pioneered the behind-the-scenes music documentary with a handheld camera in "Don't Look Back," his revered 1967 account of Bob Dylan's tour of Europe, and built on that work with 1968's "Monterey Pop." But for this film -- co-directed with his wife, Chris Hegedus -- his modus operandi doesn't serve his subjects half as well.
Perhaps those movies felt more coherent because they had a center. This rambling scrapbook doesn't. Sometimes there's a narrator, sometimes not. Sometimes there's archival footage (great scenes of Georgia great Otis Redding in his prime, Sam and Dave, the Supremes) to show them as they were; sometimes there isn't.
Invaluable as it is to revisit these soul legends -- Sam and Dave's Moore can still summon chills when he sings; Peebles, Pickett and Isaac Hayes prove time really has been on their side -- it's not enough. What's here feels more like an extended trailer than a complete movie.
If the filmmakers hadn't zigged and zagged from one artist to the next, you'd know more about how these strong singers had endured. (Like Moore's only-alluded-to tumble into the streets, where he sold heroin for a while, before he pulled himself up.) Instead, there are mentions of lawsuits and ripoffs, dirty deals and burned bridges, but too few details.
Witnessing these singers' grace is a pleasure. But if you don't already know their twisting back stories, "Only the Strong Survive" may leave you feeling more frustration than awe.
