The documentary film Les Paul: Changing Sound portrays a different kind of musician than the artists who belong to Fat Possum Records. This film about Les Paul shows a musician who enjoys and does almost anything to be able to be in the limelight. Les Paul started as a small time musician in small town Wisconsin, but he changed his style several times in order to fit the bill for what was needed.
Even though the film built up Les Paul tremendously and made him look like a jolly old man who made some of the most important innovations of the century, I thought that it was a little bit over the top. While the film continuously praised Les Paul's work, it also made it seem as if he never really knew what he was doing and that everything kind of just fell in to place for him at times. A lot of his successes seemed to be based upon luck. I also wish that they had gone more into depth about his actual inventions and how they came about.
I thought a lot of his songs were really silly, and the way that the older songs with Mary Ford were shot just served to reinforce gender stereotypes. The key example that I am thinking of was when Mary Ford was shown cooking in the kitchen while recording music. However, it was really nice to see an older man still enjoying what he was doing. Even though he seemed to be somewhat of a sellout at times, it seems that no matter what he loved making music, even if it was for a particular audience. This is something that is very refreshing to see.
Oh Les, you're so clever.
Les Paul is a meditation on the role of obsession and luck in art-making. He needed music in his life and called it his "therapy" in his last years.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your perspective of this film. At times, there is very little focus on the actual innovations and their applications with a somewhat questionable focus on what makes the events in his life seem a bit unreal in terms of luck and making things just sort of fall in place without actually showing what sort of efforts he made. Like you, I think a large portion of his success can be attributed to more things that were glossed over in this particular film. I think that Paul's love of music and technology were responsible for his continual success and it is much more believable that he accomplished what he did out of qualities like determination, perseverance, insatiable curiosity, obsession with his work, and a good instinct for business with the ability to remain plastic in terms of style and image. I think that the documentary really shorted that end of the equation and did not really show the attributes that drove him to success, but I do agree that is wonderful to learn about someone who was that passionate about making music and succeeding in his goals.
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