New BB Documentary

I hope they make it into a box set like 'Beatles Anthology'....
How are my chances?

It's in the works.

This is over a year old, but I just found an interview with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready where he briefly mentions working on a Beach Boys documentary that Thom Zimny (Elvis Presley: The Searcher) is directing. (Jerry Schilling featured in/executive produced Elvis Presley: The Searcher, which adds up…)

Interesting. Zimny will do it right. He basically specialises in doing Bruce Springsteen's videos for the most part, but he's also just done a five-hour documentary on Willie Nelson. The Searcher, for those who haven't seen it, is a nearly four-hour documentary which largely kickstarted the current Elvis fandom resurgence by being the first posthumous documentary *ever* to take Elvis seriously as a musician and look at his whole career on that basis.
If he stays true to form you can expect something along the lines of Endless Harmony but at least twice as long and with far fewer guest celebrities, and probably more artfully done. The Searcher in particular was very reminiscent of Ken Burns, if that gives an idea.

I see there a new French Beach Boys documentary being telecast on the Arte channel late in the evening (time uncertain) of Friday 21 July. Christophe Conte's Brian Wilson: Le génie empêché des Beach Boys (literally, "the impeded genius of The Beach Boys") covers "the productive but dark period between 1966 and 1971".

According to Google Translate: "The accounts of people close to Brian Wilson in Los Angeles, including guitarists Al Jardine and David Marks, Wrecking Crew pianist Don Randi, and ex-wife Marilyn, as well as protagonists from the Beach Boys' circle at the time, provide deep insights in Wilson's psyche. The documentary spares neither Wilson's problematic relationship with his tyrannical father nor the tense relationship with the other band members who did not understand the loner. Wilson's drug problem is also discussed, for ex-wife Marilyn the actual cause of his crash. The documentary paints a portrait of an outstanding pop musician whom Paul McCartney describes as a "hero" at the end of the film.”

It looks as though the whole thing is going to be overdubbed in German, an irritating habit they have over there:

www.arte.tv/de/videos/112339-000-A/die-beach-boys-genie-und-wahnsinn/

I shall be watching, providing it's not too late in the evening...

a.k.a 'The Beach Boys - Genius and Madness'
Now on YouTube to watch, but some are having difficulty in seeing it, one may have to get creative with a VPN to watch.


www-arte-tv.translate.goog/de/videos/112339-000-A/die-beach-boys-genie-und-wahnsinn/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc&_x_tr_hist=true

Here is the website description about the film:
"The five "Beach Boys" from California, including the three brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, brought the biggest surfing hits of all time to the world. The driving force behind the band was the eldest of the three brothers, Brian Wilson. The documentary sheds light on the extraordinarily fertile and nightmarish period between 1966 and 1971, during which the albums "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" were made.



"This is the dramatic story of the Beach Boys" - right at the beginning of the documentary, Brian Wilson clears up the clichés of sunny surfer and feel-good music, which is primarily associated with the most famous Californian pop group. The documentary focuses on the band leader's complex personality and his relationship with his brothers, from whom he later distances himself. She focuses on the first ten years of the Beach Boys, from the vertical start in the carefree '60s to the crash of the eldest Wilson brother in the early '70s.


The pivotal point is the period from 1966, with the masterpiece "Pet Sounds" and the failed follow-up album "Smile", which should have surfed on the bow wave of the world hit "Good Vibrations", but turned out to be a dead end. The accounts of people who were close to Brian Wilson in Los Angeles, including guitarists Al Jardine and David Marks, Wrecking Crew pianist Don Randi, and ex-wife Marilyn, as well as protagonists from the Beach Boys' circle at the time, provide deep insights into Wilson's psyche.

The documentary spares neither Wilson's problematic relationship with his tyrannical father nor the tense relationship with the other band members who did not understand the loner. Wilson's drug problem is also discussed, for ex-wife Marilyn the actual cause of his crash. The documentary paints a portrait of an outstanding pop musician whom Paul McCartney describes as a "hero" at the end of the film.
Director Christophe Conte, the maker of the documentary, is considered a recognized expert on the 1960s."
.......
Ok, after watching it, there's not a lot to see here you haven't heard before in all of it's 52 minutes.
'Dramatic Story of The Beach Boys?' Not hardly. 
It's a spotlight on Brian Wilson and the old tale that he is a Genius, we've heard it all before.
What was refreshing was seeing fresh new film pops from Marilyn Wilson, Al Jardine, David Marks, Alan Boyd, Stephen Kalinich,
Probyn Gregory, Don Randi and a couple others...
Just the same, there's not a lot new here, just retelling their old stories that have been told before.
Marilyn is used quite a lot and it would have been great to hear more from her.
The overdubbed narration is really annoying, and you can't turn it off.
A distracting watch listening to an underscore of English, to the German narration, and then trying to read English subtitles.
Quite a mess that you can't pick or choose the audio options.

As you can imagine, a lot is left out in it's 52 minute storytelling, and it's more focused on Brian and his talent than the actual band.
The title is misleading.
The documentary finished with Brian's 2004 Smile period, so it's a hodge podge 'documentary'.
There's a few Brian interviews of old that have been seen a hundred times used, so no new film there.
No sign of Mike/Bruce or a mention of Ricky/Blondie, so it's a little rough.
The film 'looks' nice with some nice clean and sharp pictures of the band used and a few short film clips here and there, 
so it had the makings of a nice film.
You won't lose much sleep if you don't get to see this one.

JK, I've put it here on Vimeo for the moment, it does lose a bit of it's quality, maybe it'll help a few others out too...
vimeo.com/manage/videos/847168668/privacy

Payin hommage.

There also might be a "repeat" Tuesday 25 at 15:40 MESZ.

If you don't like the German overdubs, just watch it with French overdubs instead! 

Beach Boys/Brian Wilson documentary cliche 1 - roll out and headline Macca to wax lyrical (for 12 seconds) about Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds.

Ummmmmmmmmm... errrrrrrrrrrrr... honestly, I don't recall him so doing, but then my memory isn't anything like it used to be.

Has Brian ever said anything about post-Sergeant Pepper Beatles music?