Review of the movie Jimi Hendrix. Climbing (Topic)

Shooting a boyopic about Jimi Hendrix is in a sense risky and ungrateful. Hendrix is a figure so powerful, a musician so legendary that it is possible to make a story about him that corresponds to this seething energy, innovation and drive only by comparing with him in genius, which is hardly attainable.

Therefore, for one approach to the bar, even without a jerk and jerk, the director of the tape, John Ridley, deserves gratitude and credit. Recently, a documentary movie about Hendrix was shown on USA TV, which came out solid, but rather dry — a bunch of interviews who had the honor of being friends, interviews with Jim himself, cutting of his stage performances. It has a lot of authentic music, however, including performances at several festivals and at Woodstock 69, where Hendrix, in front of an amazed audience and equally amazed members of his group on stage, "rewrote" anew the American Anthem, saturating it with overwhelming dramatic tension, and without points continuing with rock hits.

John Ridley is an experienced cinematographer, acclaimed screenwriter and producer (`` Pivot '', `` 12 years of slavery), but with little experience in directing. He did not begin to do a wide biographical canvas about Hendrix and limited himself to the London period of Jimi's ascent in 1966-1967. Rolling's girlfriend, to be more precise Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Linda Keith ends up in New York in 1966 at the Cheetah club to perform an unknown local black band with an incredibly talented guitarist. Falls victim to his musical genius and human charm, through long trials he finds a manager who takes him to London to build a career as a promising guitarist and vocalist.

Let's remember that London in the mid-60s was still virgin snow-white in sense of skin color of its citizens. Likewise, the Guitar Gods of the then Rock Olympus, not yet God knows how tall, were also exclusively white, the most popular figures on it were Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. In this situation, the black guitarist, for all his virtuosity, could claim exclusively the role of an exotic savage on stage. But everything turned out to be much more complicated and fateful. Jimi with his passion, originality, innocent depth and rare affinity for the guitar, which was in his hands not so much an instrument as a part of his body and soul, became a new dimension in music of the 1960s and later made a quantum leap into the today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow of music. But on his first visit to London, he was just adapting to the life of show business, looking for his place in music and the world, experimenting in the newly assembled band The Jimi Hendrix Experience, had not yet had time to break his soul and the whole world with his guitar and vocal solos.

It is with this promise and tomorrow's triumph that the movie is full, remaining in fact rather cautious, not allowing itself to be harsh definite statements and fat final points. This restraint and some uncertainty has its pros and cons. The downside is that you want to watch a murderously vivid story about a style icon and a musical idol that goes beyond all imaginable traditional frames. Plus, oddly enough, can be found in the fact that all fans, who personally knew and did not know him, have their own, and such a soft, slightly pastel sketch of a portrait of the protagonist allows everyone to saturate him with their colors, emotions, etc.

Hendrix performed by rapper Andre Benjamin is good and very similar in appearance. Bright, talented, charming, simple-minded like a child, but unshakable in his ingenuous look at this vain world, plastic like a big cat, with a wonderful open smile. John Ridley endowed him with some aggressive temper and depressiveness, but on the whole made him rather quiet and insecure, leaving behind the scenes (until better times - part 2 about 1968-69) an explosive musical temperament, eccentricity, self-will, colossal efficiency and rare originality.

Linda Keith (Imogen Poots), the girl of their good family, with all her visible freedom — work as a model, hang out with rock musicians — remains in the movie, in a good way, the embodiment of moderation, tradition, discipline, solidity, order. It was enough to assess the potential of Hendrix, slightly turn his ideas about himself and his mission in music, in fact open him to the world, rendering the latter an invaluable service. For Jimi, she remains not so much an admired woman as a kind friend and a bit of a mentor, but in general in life the muse of many musicians, who listens to their declarations of love on record on lonely evenings. Katie Etchingham (Hayley Atwell) Linda's antipode, an explosive, jealous redhead who is no less dissatisfied with her romance with Hendrix, because in the end, the bride and the wife he had one — guitar. Only with her did he acquire integrity and completeness of self-expression. Therefore, there is no place in history for any love triangles and other polygons. Benjamin, Poots and Atwell squeeze the maximum out of the plot.

The movie itself is full of music, various and popular hits of those years, but it is still not enough, because, firstly, there is a lot of talk, and secondly, you expect Jimi's passionate guitar, but it does not happen (the will of Hendrix's heirs), although Benjamin lights up on stage a couple of times. Many stars of those years flicker, but most are so fleeting that you do not even have time to appreciate the portrait resemblance or lack thereof. Nevertheless, the work of make-up artists, costume designers and decorators deserves the highest praise, because it immerses you in the atmosphere of the 1960s.

If we accept that the movie was originally conceived not as a large-scale biographical and musical show, but as a `` series ''; from the eventful history of the greatest guitarist of all time, his intimacy, caution and a little `` blandness '' quite appropriate. However, after the movie, I want to communicate with the real Hendrix and the catharsis that his fantastic music gives.

The Topic of Article: Review of the movie Jimi Hendrix. Climbing.
Author: Jake Pinkman