Music On Film: Essentials part 1 : Rockers
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Artist:
I'd like to thank CodyB for inspiring this post with his fantastic post on the importance of the movie Wild Style, which some how led me to rediscover the movie Rockers.
Sometimes describing a film as either good or bad is just so limiting. In his post, CodyB mentions that Wild Style is by no means a great movie in some of the acting performances and corny story, but it is none the less important in what it documents - The New York Hip Hop scene of the 80's. This is very important to consider when viewing a movie that centers around music, because even the best music related movies have some arts that drag.
Rockers, by no means is a bad movie. In fact it views almost more like a documentary, which as I found on Wikipedia, it was originally supposed to be. So chalk up the creation of the "Docu-drama" to the little island of Jamaica along with sampling, and DJing as well (This statement claims no basis of fact, and I'm frankly too lazy to go and research it further, since it is beside the point of the post).
What rockers represents more than anything else is a snapshot in time of Jamaica in the 70's. Nothing's prettied up. The actors visibly sweat through their shirts, poverty is ever present, the haves and the have nots are seen (sometimes eating at the same resort, or one is performing for the other). Here's the plot synopsis from wikipedia:
"Horsemouth, a drummer living in a ghetto of Kingston plans to make some extra money selling and distributing records. He buys a motorcycle to carry them to the sound systems Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief and turns into a reggae interpretation of the Robin Hood myth."
As any film is that focuses on music, it's really all about the music. There's some great performances in this as well. Clips of the movie are scattered around YouTube, but I would recommend buying it on DVD since it has a neccessary subtitle option. Here's a couple clips to digest
Title scene for Rockers
Jacob Miller w/ Burning Spear
Strutting
Locating MOG account...
Comments (9)
Um yeah..I never saw this post. Thanks for the props and reminder. You said what I was thinking about music movies and their import outside of the way we normally break down cinema..these movies benefit from not having too many pro actors I think. Nice one. That last clip has a Peter Tosh cut,right? Smokin'
Could be. I thought I saw Lee Perry as well, but I didn't see him listed on Wikipedia
I meant the tune..Stepping Razor. I guess the cat walking the bridge kinda looked like Mr.Tosh or Mr.Issacs.
I loved this movie when it came out - I saw it 3 or 4 times. There are so many interesting elements - the tracking camera is wonderful, especially near the start when it follows people through the alleys and new scenes reveal themselves around corners. The particular way they use language - I still remember the shock I felt when someone hands Horsemouth a bundle of money and says, "Control this." It just sounds so heavy compared to "Look after this". My favourite section is where Horsemouth goes to Burning Spear after he's been robbed (is that right?) and is feeling really low. Winston gets a big spliff and they go down to the beach. Smoking the spliff Winston goes off on a transcendant accapella version of 'Jah No Dead' which for me is one of the greatest moments in cinema.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention again. A DVD is definitely needed at Castle Ingham.
Yep, I looked for it at a big box retail book store I had a gift certificate too a coule christmas's ago, but I had no luck. It's cathartic to watch. Something about the story kind of just happening without all sorts of build up like in other movies. It's so natural feeling.
Your right, the slang is fantastic. I had forgotten about that. I definitely needed the subtitles though to help understand the rythym of their patois.
Cheers for this, Tyler. It's a fine companion piece to Cody's post. I'm fascinated by docu-drama. I watched Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park last night which featured non-actors. It was not "about" music (and a bit of a retread of the superior Elephant) but the soundtrack was fascinating, Elliot Smith, death metal, techno, classical, it ran the gamut musically. Judging by the clips above, Rocker is reminiscent of The Harder They Come featuring Jimmy Cliff. Great energy to the scenes and the music is brill. Bring it to Broadway, I say!
For some reason, I remember more about this movie than "The Harder They Come" (but in all honesty, I should watch it again).
To broadway, really? It would inevitably look like this:
wow...Burning Spear is so young in that clip!
"Rockers" had its moments, aye - the Abyssinians at the start, and the Burning Spear scene Jonh mentioned for two.
However...I remember going to the press premiere way back when and wondering about how one or two artists were presented. Gregory Issacs agreed to be filmed live on stage, and to play Jah Tooth, the car thief, and was furious when he learned that both parts were to be used in the movie. Granted, his following history of drug busts and jail sentences put it in a different light, but I suspect that Ted Bafaloukos was less open with his cast than Perry Henzell six years earlier.
I still love "The Harder They Come", but there are a few scenes in "Rockers" that make me cringe