Mapping the Rockumentary
Images of Sound and Fury
Edited by Gunnar Iversen, Scott MacKenzie
- Transforms the study of rockumentaries, documentary studies and popular music studies
- Provides in-depth discussions of different sub-genres and forms
- Case studies include Long Strange Trip, Truth or Dare, Some Kind of Monster, Shut Up and Sing and I'm Not There
Mapping the Rockumentary: Images of Sound and Fury is the first anthology to explore the rockumentary as a central component of both the documentary and world cinema. The book includes case studies of bands and performers such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Madonna and Metallica and performers from Asia, Europe and the Americas, making the case for rockumentaries as part of an established and ever-evolving cinematic tradition. With an international and transdisciplinary approach, and addressing rocumentaries in film, television and on the internet, the book explores the form’s rich history from the 1950s to the present day – and beyond.
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Images of Sound and Fury - Gunnar Iversen and Scott MacKenzie
Part One: Histories
1. Music Makers of the Blue Ridge - Greil Marcus
2. ‘I Don’t Make Culture, I Sell It!’: The Early History of Music Documentation, 1920s-1970s - Laura Niebling
3. Monterey Pop and the Maturation of the Concert Film - Laurel Westrup
4. The Sound of Rockumentary: A Consideration of the Documentary Soundtrack - Michael Baker
5. False Endings - Scott MacKenzie
Part Two: Gender
6. ‘Start Me Up’: The Place and Displacement of Women in the Cinema of Rolling Stones - Catherine Strong and Stephen Gaunson
7. Madonna on Film: Geopolitics, Globalization, and Gender Politics - Anna Westerstahl Stenport
8. The Freedom to Speak: The Dixie Chicks, Observational Documentary, and Shut Up & Sing - Heather McIntosh
9. Rock ‘n’ Roll Family Romances: Rockumentary as Male Melodrama - Gunnar Iversen
10. Performing Dylan: The Many Lives of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There - Magdalena Fürnkranz
Part Three: Aesthetics and Politics
11. U2’s Rattle and Hum: God, Sex, Rock and Roll and God Again - Karine Bertrand
12. Punk City Symphony: The Clash and Rude Boy - Celine Bell
13. Listening from the Empty Booth: Performing the Grateful Dead Community in Long Strange Trip - Randolph Jordan
14. Minimum and Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and Rockumentary Form - Anthony Kinik
15. ‘Everything Was Stories’: The Aesthetic Imaginaries of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus - Asbjørn Grønstad and Øyvind Vågnes
Part Four: Counter-Cultures
16. Chile: The Rock of Political Culture and the Hard Place of Cultural Policy - Jorge Saavedra Utman and Toby Miller
17. Psychedelia and Rebelliousness in Times of Dictatorship: Argentinian Rockumentaries (1973-1983) - Javier Campo and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli
18. Harmonium in California: Musically Imagined Communities and the Rockumentary Form - Eric Fillion
19. Stations of the Crass: Counter-Culture and the Anarcho-Punk Movement - Asbjørn Tiller
20. Cars and Guitars, or, Detroit and the MC5: On Representations of Music and Place in MC5: A True Testimonial - Lindsey Eckenroth
Part Five: Futures
21. Unknowable Dogs - Gary Kibbins
22. ‘This is a F**king Business’: The Concert Tour in the 1970s Fiction Film - Julie Lobalzo Wright
23. Live from the Cineplex: The Concert Film as Event Cinema since the 2000s - Ian Robinson
24. Documenting Deities: Touch and K-pop Fandom on YouTube - Eric Chalfant and Ali Na
25. Ritual in Transfigured Time - Greil Marcus
This book is a milestone in the study of rockumentary as a genre and the way it reflects history, gender and politics. It takes us through the almost uncharted land of this important genre: from early forms of mediated music, to the breakthrough in the 1960s and into the digital era. It is a rich and illuminating analysis of rockumentary and its cultural context.
