Dir. Barbara Kopple, US, 2006, 93 mins
Cast: Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire
Review by Joyce Dundas
Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple directs this very well-made documentary about the worst time in the lives of the three women who make up the hugely successful US country band the Dixie Chicks. Kopple started making a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the platinum award-winning country band in 2003, but happened upon one of the most interesting stories to come out of the music industry in recent years. And knowing how controversial the characters in that industry can be, that has to be a story worth telling.
The documentary probably has had much more resonance in the States, where it has won numerous festival awards. In this country the band's fans will know the story as will some media savvy audiences, but this is a difficult sell to a general UK audience.
To be clear, the film documents the story of how singer Natalie Maines made a throwaway comment during a concert in London about being ashamed of US President George W. Bush and his stance on Iraq.
However, the smart, intelligent, if clearly opinionated Maines had little idea what a storm she had caused until what seemed like a small comment made between songs at a concert started to cause a media storm back home in the US.
Kopple, who was in the right place at the right time, shows us how the ripples of that throwaway comment then turned into tidal waves when the American media jumped on the story and turned the hugely successful band into unpatriotic pariahs. The band's music was dropped from every country music station in the US, especially in the Southern States, and basically their career is going into meltdown in front of them. There are some magnificent scenes as their management and press officers meet with them to try to bring them around and deal with this escalating storm and the loss of some very lucrative sponsorship contracts.
To be fair on these talented women, they are not heroines they feel serious pressure and, as all are mothers, know that they should take very seriously the threats against them and their families. The furore hits its peak when there is a threat against Natalie's life during the US concert tour, which no-one has any choice but to take extremely seriously.
It is unfair though to say that this documentary is all about the women's political views, it is not. It takes that as a starting point yes, but it gives a great insight into the difficulties of being three very different people in a massively successful band, even if two of them are sisters. It shows the friction over the situation they found themselves in at the time, they all appear to support Maines' comment but there is an obvious underlying feeling from the other two that they wish she just hadn't said it. The film also shows the rivalry, healthy and competitive as it is, between Martie and her sister Emily Robison, over the musical talents the two band members display and get to explore.
There are also some very tense moments, particularly over the death threat, well this is the US after all and there are telling moments too, a lot of the time the band's children are not shown on camera and at one point, it looks like Robison would just like to give it all up to live on her ranch.
The film is a rare insight into a situation which could destroy an incredibly successful band at the height of its fame. It is a commendation to the immense strength of the three Dixie Chicks' band members that they took what they learned from this crisis and went on to reinvent themselves not only personally – whether they agree or not they are an opinion from what could have been an unheard voice on this subject, the demographic known in the states as “soccer moms” – but also musically, developing their sound into something that translated into a platinum album and the successful single Not Ready to Make Nice.
It is interesting that this film should look so deeply into the suppression of free speech when that is one of the very tenets the whole war in Iraq has been based upon. A good documentary about a very interesting subject, but without the hype of a Michael Moore style controversy surrounding it, it might not get the audience it deserves.
|
