AWESOME; I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT - Review

Eisenstein was a Pussy.

MTV-style editing has nothing on the number of cuts-per-minute in Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That (hereafter, AIFST). In fact, AIFST may just well be the defining film for the DIY video aesthetic of the first decade of the 21st Century. But before I head too deep into hyperbole, full disclosure is perhaps in order.

The few concert films I've watched tend to be somewhat static affairs trying to call the least attention to the medium, and maximize just capturing the performance interspliced with the occasional crowd or behind the scenes shots. Or, on the flip side of that, Michael Winterbottom's sort-of-concert film 9 Songs unlit, verité, camera-in-the-crowd approach was just awful. I've also been out of touch with the Beastie Boys since the late 1990s, so it was as somewhat of an outsider that I approached the fan-shot concert film of their October 2004 Madison Square Gardens performance. While the idea of handing out 50 video cameras to concert goers and telling them to “Always-Be-Shooting” is interesting at first glance, upon further consideration, AIFST could just as easily ended up as uninteresting as a photo album made up of prints from disposable point-and-shoot cameras placed on a tables at a wedding reception.

AIFST is, fortunately, quite a different experience. Looking at first like CNN war video-bytes (you know that flat coloured, jerky home-video 9/11 footage look) the film then proceeds to bounce around visual styles like a spastic kid who has a feature-rich digital camera and wants to try out every video altering feature. The DV medium, the bead-and-pause driven sound, and an often humourous sub textual commentary on both the energy and the banal nature of the concert experience combine to form a package which first threatens to bore. The first 10 minutes of footage gave me a sense of serious forboding, and only in retrospect made sense; as it slyly builds its own audio-visual rhythm to a satisfying whole. AIFST may look like a frappé of Sergei Eisenstein, Andy Warhol, Billy Van and Gerry Todd, but there is an intelligent design to the visual trickery.

A black and white segment of the film couldn't help but remind me of the trailer materials from Christian Volckman's Renaissance and a monitor-within-a-monitor bit with shifting colours to convey the feeling of zooming through layers of media is just brilliant. A couple of special brownies could only add to the visual mayhem. Photosensitive epileptics may want to consider staying as far away as possible. By the end, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach fits the Beasties music and Mix-Master Mike's tour-de-force scratch solos.

One thing which has given the Beastie Boys a fair bit of longevity in the music world (They've been doing this for 20 years now) is how they charmingly layer on the artifice (one has only to look at the several Spike Jonze videos for the band), yet keep things fairly down to earth with a healthy does self-mock. Here it is in the form of showing some video clips of folks buying beer in the lobby during the show, one camera operator relieves themselves in the washroom (an extended take which also features the camera operator washing their hands and towel-drying) during an intense moment in the show, and the occasional crowd section of the Gardens which looks slightly bored (and camera operator tries to instill some excitement by promising them they will be on the DVD). In the modern pop musical world where pretense is typically trumps content, and in the various forms of rap and hip-hop even moreso, the way AIFST constantly and cheekily lets the winds out of its own sails (A political rant on Cuba at the in an opening text crawl has an amusing punchline which sets this tone early) manages to add to the experience, not take it away. Who hasn't felt the pangs of boredom at those large Stadium gigs? It doesn't take away that the collective show may be fantastic, just that there needs to be highs and lows to fully experience the thing. The editors (who put in over-time going though the massive volume of 2 hours times 50 cameras worth of questionable and chaotic material) of AIFST know this, and manage to communicate it over the course of the film.

AIFST is worth a look both because the style and the music are a perfect fit. If you have any interest in editing home-made movies (as this is one of the largest home-made-movie projects I can think of) it certainly offers the excess point of view, but there is more going on than that, the excesses are layered overtop a rhythmic strategy which is worth studying for the amateur DV jockey. And finally from a purely rapid visual overload, it sets the bar for the year 2006 for sure.

Post Script: I'm not sure if this is a part of the actual film or not, but a 15 minute sketch from Mr. Show's David Cross as the fictional AIFST director Nathanial Hörnblowér is Kaufman-esque to the point of fully alienating by the time it limps to its conclusion. What better way to set expectations so low going in, to allow AIFST to fully surprise?