FEATURE:
When I Was Older
IMAGE CREDIT: Apple TV +
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry and the Music Documentary
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THERE has been a lot of activity…
IMAGE CREDIT: Hulu
over the past year regarding music documentaries and biopics. Andra Day stars in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, whilst there are plans for an Amy Winehouse biopic. I think there are others in the pipeline – including Madonna’s biopic, which she will direct -, and it will be interesting to see how the biopics fare with critics. It can be hard capturing the artist’s truth and making the film accessible and popular. If one were to be too graphic or open, then that means it could be censored or some audiences would balk. I do think that some biopics hold back because the artist’s life is pretty unconventional or, to some, controversial. When a music biopic is done right it is naked with the facts but it does not sensationalise or needlessly push itself in a provocative manner. Music documentaries are not immune from getting the balance wrong when it comes to honesty vs. commercial appeal. A great music documentary stays in the mind and teaches us more about an artist. I was moved by the reaction to the Framing Britney Spears documentary. I have been a fan of hers since the start, and the news developments regarding guardianship and how her finances are being handled is heartrbreaking. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for the new documentary, Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry. Huge stars from Taylor Swift (Miss Americana) to Lady Gaga (Five Foot Two) have had documentaries about them produced. The tabloids and social media can misrepresent an artist or, often, that artist does not feel comfortable being so open with the media and fans online.
What has come from the Britney Spears documentary and subsequent reaction is how she was mistreated and the sort of sexism she had to endure. Arguably, Billie Eilish is one of the biggest artists in the world. A Pop innovator and inspirational figure, the nineteen-year-old from Los Angeles has a massive future ahead. Whilst it is not as shocking or revealing as the Britney Spears documentary, it is a balanced and honest look at one of the most original and interesting artists of our age. I want to bring in bits of a review from The Guardian regarding Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry:
“These are not myths; as captured in RJ Cutler’s mesmerizing and generous Apple TV+ documentary The World’s a Little Blurry, Eilish did, indeed, spend these supersonic teenage years at her family’s modest house in Los Angeles; she and Finneas do compose their music in his bedroom with such organic sibling telepathy it seems almost too casual to be the omnipresent dark-pop hits Bad Guy or Bury a Friend. But over the course of nearly two and a half hours, The World’s a Little Blurry offers a fascinating rejoinder to any cynicism that this could be image maintenance for a teenage superstar. The verité-style documentary, filmed from late 2018 through Eilish’s Grammys sweep in 2020 (11 awards, including album of the year), observes an enviably talented and more enviably self-possessed young woman handling the twin rocketships of superstardom and adolescence with astounding awareness, if not always control.
The trust afforded to Cutler (The War Room, The September Issue) by Eilish’s family – mom Maggie Baird and father Patrick O’Connell, both near-constant presences – is evident. The camera roves through the family home, dropping in on family arguments (Maggie and Finneas, and then Eilish, arguing over the latter’s reluctance to make an “accessible” hit) and Eilish’s bedroom the morning of her Grammy nominations. The film glides on the always-magnetic juxtaposition of superstardom weirdness with relatability – Eilish DM-ing her idol, Justin Bieber, posting to her millions of Instagram followers, selecting her signature baggy couture outfits for tour; Eilish studying for her driver’s permit, complaining about her family’s lame cars, or groaning when her father compares new music to a Duncan Sheik song.
It also includes all the promises of authenticity we’ve come to expect from modern music documentaries: quiet moments, the stress of touring, the vertigo of rapid-onset fame, work process competency porn. But whereas Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana, released last year on Netflix, often felt like a meticulous, if entertaining, propaganda project, The World’s a Little Blurry portrays an artist for whom the idea of “authenticity” is both artistically important and for filming, passé.
Its strongest element, aside from Eilish herself, is the generosity and empathy afforded to the experience of fandom. Eilish, so devoted to Bieber as a 12-year-old that Baird considered putting her in therapy, speaks fluently of the hyper-intense adoration lobbed at her by millions, predominantly teenage girls. When she breaks down for a full 30 seconds upon meeting him, in one of The World’s a Little Blurry’s best scenes, it may as well be any one of the crying, alight faces in her crowds. The chasmic emotion, the consuming devotion for your artistic heroes, the way it makes even the darkest recesses of your brain feel temporarily OK – that, for Eilish, her fans, and viewers, is strikingly real”.
In another review, this is what Will Gompertz observed and noted for the BBC:
“There is archive talent show footage, in which we see a very young Billie singing, Finneas providing harmony, her mum playing the guitar, and her dad on the keyboard. Maybe it is with the benefit of hindsight, but brand Billie appears to have been something Maggie and Patrick had envisaged from day one: a star not so much born as conceived by her parents.
Both children were home-schooled and shown how to write and produce songs. They encouraged them to make music together, which they duly did, with Finneas's bedroom acting as their HQ.
"My family is the reason I'm the way I am" Billie says, over a clip showing her at around two years old sitting on a piano stool next to Finneas as their mother excitedly announces off-camera "your first duet!"
Everything seems pretty laid back and really tense at the same time. The dream has become reality. Billie's career is taking off, record execs are sitting on Finneas's bed as he plays them a backing track while his little sister, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, sings while looking at the lyrics on her smartphone.
Nobody says much, but everything you need to know about the music business is captured in that one scene.
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV +
Billie comes across as a lovely, caring person, with her own physical and psychological challenges to overcome. She has the courage to share some of her darkest thoughts and fears in her songs, she is an artist wearing her heart and soul on the sleeve of her record.
There is a foreboding sense in this film of we've seen all this before, it is Act One of a three-act story.
You can't help but think of the recently released Britney Spears documentary, she was a talented teenager who had a lot of parental input but whose life and mental health suffered under the pressure of fame and expectation.
Turning a person into a product works for just about everybody except for the artist. It is the epitome of a Faustian pact, with an important exception: it is rarely the teenage prodigy who does the deal.
Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry is a refreshingly candid, intelligent documentary, if a little a long, which leaves you wondering if a life of relentless celebrity and trying to please everybody but yourself is actually a good plan.
You wonder exactly whose dream is coming true?
I found it sad rather than uplifting, but the music is exceptional and so is the woman making it”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV +
The documentary comes ahead of an autobiography in May that is going to make for fascinating reading. Eilish also has some songs ready for a new album. Following from the remarkable 2019 debut, WHEN WEALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, I think that we will get other compelling music documentaries through this year. It can be difficult putting out a documentary as it can be quite exposing or create some negative reaction. Music and interviews can only tell so much, so documentaries like Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry are informative and have an element of objectivity – in the sense the artist can have control and rewrite some misperceptions. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next and whether we will get other big artists putting out their stories in the form of documentaries. I feel this year is going to be one of the biggest for Billie Eilish. With a documentary, autobiography and possible second album due, she will go from a superstar to a global megastar! Where biopics can be disjointed and false and some documentaries can be a little self-serving, redacted or empty, with Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, Eilish and RJ Cutller…
GOT the balance right.