1/23/2024 0 Comments Hbo music boxWhile Gerson and Cimino served as series’ executive producers, Simmons notes that Universal Music and the artists behind each “Music Box” film did not have final cut.Īny issues over who was in control of the series’ first season became clear when Morissette distanced herself from Klayman’s “Jagged” in September - days before the doc’s Toronto Intl. Marc and Jody were the ones with the relationships.” “There’s no way you could do a series like this without people who really get how the music industry works. Polygram Entertainment and Universal Music Publishing Group executives Jody Gerson and Marc Cimino were key to getting HBO’s “Music Box” off the ground. Without their blessings there would be no access to talent and the budget for licensing music would mirror a Marvel movie. To be fair, making a music docu without the backing of a pop star or the record label is difficult. Cutler and Questlove’s exploration of 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival, “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”Įach singer also had a hand in making the respective documentaries by serving as a producer - or in some cases, the record label served as a producer - which has raised concerns over creative control and whether music docs are artistic endeavors or infomercials. There are three music docs on the Oscar shortlist: “The Velvet Underground,” Todd Haynes’ look at the seminal band “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry,” from R.J. Pink, Taylor Swift and Tina Turner had all followed in the footsteps of Madonna, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé and become doc stars. But during the three and a half years that it took Simmons and his digital media company, the Ringer, to create, make and deliver the HBO series, documentaries about musicians had blown up. When Simmons began developing “Music Box,” Morgan Neville and Asif Kapadia had won Oscars for “20 Feet From Stardom” and “Amy,” respectively. Frierson’s “DMX: Don’t Try to Understand” was the only film that he acquired. “Listening to Kenny G,” which premiered at the Toronto Festival, was one of five docs that Simmons commissioned for the series. “I thought exploring what it is about him and his music that has made him so wildly popular yet so disdained by the critical class would be an interesting way to get into issues around taste and cultural gatekeeping.” “Kenny G makes extremely inoffensive music that nonetheless inspires a great deal of anger and even disgust in certain people,” says Lane, who pitched Simmons the idea for the film. Two examples are Price’s “Woodstock 99,” which examines how the festival eventually collapsed under the weight of its own misguided ambition, and Lane’s “Listening to Kenny G,” which attempts to answer why the best-selling instrumentalist of all time is so polarizing. “The throughline that connects each of these six ‘Music Box’ films was their concentration on a window or an event or some sort of condensed timeline that tried to answer a specific question.” While the six films in the series delve into an array of topics and explore all kinds of personalities, Simmons says each installment complements the other, and not because they are based in song. Saturday Night” about music entrepreneur Robert Stigwood and Tommy Oliver’s “Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss.” It was followed by Alison Klayman’s Alanis Morissette documentary “Jagged,” Christopher Frierson’s “DMX: Don’t Try to Understand,” Penny Lane’s “Listening to Kenny G,” John Maggio’s “Mr. Three and a half years later in July, Garret Price’s “Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage” became the first Music Box film to be released.
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