Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic Representations of Popular Music

In Music Films, Neil Fox assesses a broad range of non-fiction films in terms of cinematic style and issues such as history, politics, race, gender, geography, innovation, fandom and the cultivation of myth.

Fox explores famous films including A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles), Dig! (The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols) and Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin) and filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Penelope Spheeris and Jim Jarmusch. Fox also brings into focus critically lauded works such as Milford Graves Full Mantis, The Punk Singer (Kathleen Hanna and Riot Grrrl) and Mistaken For Strangers (The National). He makes critical space for films that illustrate innovations in form and content that run through the history of the music documentary, but that may not have received due attention previously. This includes Avakian and Stern's Jazz On A Summer's Day through films about Devo and Ornette Coleman, to already forgotten early noughties indie punk nearly-men, The Parkinsons.

The study blends historical and critical analysis of texts, drawing on music and film criticism as well as broader commentary and theory to locate the films under discussion in their wider contexts. The book also contains new and existing interviews by Neil Fox with music documentary luminaries such as Julien Temple, Jeanie Finlay, Kieran Evans, Don Letts and Christine Franz. Discussions range from milestone developments to the concert film, to films about music making and the music business, touring and going deep into hazy notions of truth and authenticity.