Oct. 03, 2012 - Issue #885: Fall Style 2012
Shut Up and Play the Hits
The long goodbye
The week leading up to it, the show itself and the morning after are all captured in Shut Up, a concert doc that gives you every reason to believe something about Murphy and the band he had, if you didn't already: highlighting a band ending its career on top of its game, and probing into the mind of the man behind its brilliance and its ending, either smart enough or self-conscious enough to embrace a burn-out rather than letting it all fade away.
The film's structure is excellent: we get a scatter of songs throughout, performed in their entirety, probably the ones you'd want to hear (including "All My Friends," "Someone Great," "I Can Change" and the show-closing "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down"), all coming across as killer live takes that are particularly well captured here. My favourite recurring camera shot is the static cam above the mosh pit. Interspersing those live cuts with the Klosterman interview gives it some beats (and insight into both Murphy and Klosterman's strangely brilliant minds).
The only part of Shut Up that doesn't quite click is the "morning after" moments: elsewhere directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern's fly-on-the-wall approach—no formal sit-down interview shots, never appearing before the camera—is skillfully executed, and fits: they don't give more context than is necessary, letting the captured footage do the work to highlight the sentiments of the moment. But the lack of acknowledgement starts to feel false as we follow Murphy along his morning after, mostly alone, walking his dog, and having a little cry in the old rehearsal space without ever acknowledging that there's a camera in the room with him.
Still, it's used sparingly enough not to detract much from the concert film's other, much greater successes. Shut Up captures the exhilarating end to a band in a way that succeeds in living up to the film's title card boast, written across the opening black screen: "If it's the funeral, let's have the best funeral ever."
Metro Cinema at the Garneau
4
Shut Up and Play the HitsOpens Sun, Oct 7 – Mon, Oct 8
Directed by: Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern
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