I Am Trying
To Break Your Heart (***1/2)
review by Ken Gumbs
For the life of me I don’t know why this film is called I Am Trying To
Break Your Heart. Sure it is the opening track to Wilco’s
critically accalimed album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but I don’t believe it
applies here. If rookie director Sam Jones is trying to break our hearts with
his documentary about Chicago rockers Wilco, then he fails...but in a good way.
Wilco is a band. A good band. A band that made a good album. But in a world
of corporate ownership of record companies,
great albums don’t always get the respect they deserve. There is no better
example, than Wilco’s release from former record label Reprise Records.
To me, that is what this film is really about. Can art still survive in a corporate
world? A question that seems to be answered with a resounding, 'yes' in this
film. Wilco gets to keep their record and sell it to another record label for
three times as much as they were originally offered.
Ironically, the later record label is owned by the same media conglomerate as
Reprise Records. So little guys from Chicago do good. They get to release their
album, keep their integrity, and actually get away with a couple bucks in their
pockets. My heart is far from broken with that story.
The central focus of the film is the recording and release of Wilco’s Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot. When were not in and out of studios and record company offices,
we get to see some interesting personal moments of the band. Lead singer Jeff
Tweedy takes the role of star in this film, if you can name just one star. We
see the full spectrum of Jeff Tweedy, everything from playing with his children
to vomiting in a bathroom due to a case of chronic nausea. Another touching
moment was during the recording sessions. Guitarist Jay Bennet insisted to add
another guitar track to a new song. Jeff Tweedy tells him ‘I think
two guitars have become obsolete’. Bennet replies by saying ‘Well,
I don’t know how to take that’. With that simple exchange of words
we see the beginning of the end of a collaboration and an end of a friendship.
Bennet is later asked to leave the band.
For a directorial debut, I take my hat off to Sam Jones. I have to admit that
I wished I could have seen more. More initial
reactions from band members after they were dropped from their label. More fighting
between band members. Too often we are forced to simply watch the band tell
us the story through interview. Now, I can understand that is difficult to ask
a director to be at all the right places at the right times during a documentary,
but, with such a compelling story and such beautiful filmmaking I was hoping
for a perfect film. Instead, I ended up with just your run-of-the-mill great
film. Hey, my heart’s still not broken.
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