Come Day 4 I was starting to get tired, and Sam (my partner) and I had
lined up another busy day. After visiting the Australian Film Television
and Radio School (AFTRS) open day to inquire about a Screen Culture
course we are interested in taking, we stocked up on supplies in
preparation for our four film final day. On tap: A Band Called Death, which I had heard amazing things about, including Nick Brodies 5-star review here on Graffiti With Punctuation, Unlawful Killing, a
controversial probe into the truth about the death of Princess Diana
and one of the world’s first screenings in its uncut form, The Final Member, the
second documentary about penises, this time focusing on a curator of a
penis museum and his search for a human specimen, and The Canyons, the trashy LA-set tale of passion and revenge from writer Bret Easton Ellis and director Paul Schrader.In the early 1970’s, before The Ramones and punk there was Death, a Detroit-based group made up of three African American brothers – David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney – who started out by jamming in a tiny room on the second story of their family home. Already influenced by The Who, after attending an Alice Cooper concert they decided to alter their approach to music – to pure rock-and-roll. At this time, rock-and-roll was white folks music, but these guys were good enough to take off against the odds. In a line of successful recent music documentaries – the Academy Award-winning Searching For Sugar Man most obviously – A Band Called Death eclipses them, I feel. This extraordinary story has it all; natural artistic vision, devastating sacrifices and missed opportunities, unshakable loyalty to family and unexpected second chances. It is the kind of life-affirming tale you won’t want to shake.
Continue reading at Graffiti With Punctuation.
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