The Unfettered Critic – April 2025

DOCUMENTARY/ is the first line of a poem/ known as a haiku.

Really.

It has the required five syllables. Also, it allows us to put a five-syllable word into this Lifestyle Magazine (upping the I.Q. factor). Plus, we know that by watching documentaries, we’ll be distracted from the incessant drone of “news” infesting the airwaves today.

Seriously. One can hardly turn on the TV without getting hacked off about something. (We hope you agree, because disagreement is one of the things we’re hacked off about.) We could simply unplug the TV, but then we’d just continue thinking about what we’d just turned off. It’s such a turn-off.

A better idea, we feel, is to revert to the milder medium we followed in the Old Days. What was the magic that helped us survive equally divisive extremes in the Sixties-Seventies-etcetera?

Wait—it wasn’t magic. It was MUSIC!

Yes, Music! Strange visitor from another planet who came… wait… that’s not it, that’s something else entirely. We mean those meaningful melodies that reached into our souls, provoking our passions via aural stimulation! Today, by adding a visual element, we can stream something like… music documentaries. (You knew we’d get there eventually, didn’t you.)

Sure, you might have to “rent” some of your favorites, but that’s the price of sanity. So, dig in—and dig it!

Here’s four of our favorites:

The Last Waltz (1978): Our perennial rave fave. We’ve mentioned it before, but it’s so worth mentioning again. Martin Scorsese directed this celebratory concert of the band known as The Band on their last day of performing. It’s free (with ads) on Tubi and Pluto, or pay to download it on Apple+.

The Beatles: Get Back (2021): Peter Jackson’s fascinating three-part (twelve hour) documentary about the making of the 1970 docu-movie Let It Be, which covered the recording of the Fab Four’s final album. Jackson’s version presents amazing footage that didn’t make earlier cuts. The Beatles had spent a decade changing the pop music scene, and in the process had outgrown the genre they created. Here we witness disagreements and candid discussions previously unshared with the public, plus incredible must-see performances. Streaming on Disney+, it is also available for purchase as a DVD.

Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis (2022): “Vinyl is the poor man’s art collection,” we’re told, although it’s the albums’ sleeves that the speaker means. Following an era of uninspired portrait-style photographs, a sudden swirl of psychedelic ingenuity brought us the irascible genius Storm Thorgerson and photographer Aubrey Powell, who created the company Hipgnosis. This fascinating documentary likens their creative surrealism to the work of artists like Salvador Dali. A giant plastic pig soaring over an iconic industrial zone (Pink Floyd’s Animals). Peter Gabriel clawing his way out of a black-and-white portrait (Scratch). A placid cow shot against a blue sky (Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother). Naked blond children ascending heaps of peculiarly-shaped rocks (Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy). The genius behind such art, you’ll agree, is fascinating. Streaming on Netflix or rentable on Apple+ and Prime.

And now for something completely different: Music by John Williams (2024): During that same time period that we were listening to such music, we also experienced some of the best motion pictures ever: Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Schindler’s List…  From his beginnings as a jazz pianist, to earning 54 Oscar nominations, including five wins, Williams developed a way of weaving every on-screen emotion into his scores. Just watching this doc on Disney+ will make you long to watch every film all over again.

See? There’s nothing to disagree about here.

Featured image: The definitive photo of a cow, portrayed on Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’ (1970).