TIFF reviews about artists: Elton John, Andrea Bocelli, Pamela Anderson

I can’t remember a TIFF with so many documentaries about famous musicians.

Besides Elton John: Never Too Late and Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe, there’s also been The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, Paul Anka: His Way, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Takin’ Care of Business.

With the starry subjects — whose careers span decades — attending their films’ premieres and red carpets (minus the late, great Gord Downie, of course), these rock docs have proven a savvy way to generate crossover buzz.

I caught the premieres of the first two films and wasn’t disappointed. There were jolts of excitement in Roy Thomson Hall when Elton John and, a day or so later, Andrea Bocelli, appeared and answered a few softball post-screening questions for adoring fans. I even got to interview Bocelli in a piece for the Toronto Star (see below).

The films themselves are, well, fine; in both cases they provide some rare archival footage, lots of access and intimate glimpses of the artists out of the spotlight. But they do need to be taken with a critical grain of salt. John’s husband, Toronto-born David Furnish, is the co-director and co-producer of their film, while both Bocelli and his wife/manager, Veronica Bocelli, are executive producers of theirs. In other words, don’t expect Gimme Shelter.

One of the more revealing moments in Elton John: Never Too Late (Rating: ✭✭✭) comes in the first third, when we see John and Furnish host a segment of their podcast Rocket Hour, in which John conducts Zoom interviews with up-and-coming and established artists. It’s here that the filmmakers show him wanting to give back and — especially for younger queer artists, like Allison Ponthier — providing the kind of support, example and encouragement he obviously didn’t have when he was their age himself.

The doc focuses on the hugely prolific period in John’s early career from 1970 to 1975, when he produced a whopping 13 albums, cementing his superstar status. This astonishing period began with his infamous performance at the Troubadour (where he entered a complete unknown) and then culminated in his historic 1975 concert at Dodger Stadium. The filmmakers follow John on his farewell tour in 2022, reminiscing about his experiences in various cities and arenas and counting down the days to the tour’s finale, in a full circle moment, at Dodger Stadium.

That historic concert was captured in the Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium, which is currently streaming on Disney+. That’s also where this doc will end up later this fall — which explains why various expletives have been bleeped out of the film.

The filmmakers are helped a lot by audio excerpts from the hours of interviews that went into making John’s 2019 autobiography, Me. Less helpful are animation segments used periodically to illustrate key moments in his life.

Strangely, there’s no mention of John’s bizarre marriage to German sound engineer Renate Blauel, though perhaps that’s because of her lawsuit about the singer discussing their marriage publicly in his memoir and the (excellent) biopic Rocketman.

Still, there are fascinating bits, such as the extended sequence recounting the brief friendship between John and John Lennon. The friendship included lots of drug-taking, including one coke-fuelled bender that included avoiding the prying eyes of Andy Warhol. The friendship also resulted in a hit single (“Whatever Gets You Through the Night”), which they sang together live at Madison Square Garden in 1974. This, incidentally, may have been the event that got Lennon and Yoko Ono to reunite; the two had split, and Ono had reached out to John to get a ticket. It was the last live concert appearance Lennon ever gave.

Throughout, John stresses the importance of being honest — about his drug-taking, his sexuality, his self-destructive early relationship with manager/lover John Reid. In the video interviews at that time, it’s obvious how unhappy he was. It’s a revelation to listen to the original audio recording of his groundbreaking interview with Rolling Stone in which he told the interviewer to keep the tape going while he discussed his bisexuality.

Granted, once he finds sobriety, love and the support of a nurturing family (his affection for his sons is heartwarming), the film loses a bit of tension. But there’s a lot here for rabid John stans and casual listeners. Musicians in particular will appreciate his insights into writing music to already-written lyrics, and the filmmakers do a credible job with seeing the connections between his creative output and his life. Also, it’s pretty astonishing that John had to fight to keep in his song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from The Lion King, a song that would go on to win an Oscar.

The doc is getting a theatrical run in mid-November, so far in the U.S. and UK, before hitting Disney+ a month later.

Crossover king

Confession: before this month, I wasn’t a huge Andrea Bocelli fan. (I always felt his tone was lovely but his voice incredibly thin.) But researching his life, reading some past interviews and listening to some of his recordings to prepare for my 10-minute chat with him, I was soon won over. Then seeing Cosima Spender’s intimate documentary, Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe (Rating: ✭✭✭), made me even more intrigued.

Like anyone on the planet, I’d heard his huge, schmaltzy crossover hits like “The Prayer” and “Time to Say Goodbye” (a.k.a. “Con te partiro”) just through cultural osmosis. But I had no idea the latter only came about because of a boxing match.

A few other fateful moments like this contributed greatly to his enormous international success, even though he always felt he was destined for something special and lived his life with “zero fear.” There are a few gaps in the film, especially surrounding his first marriage. And despite the film’s subtitle, there’s no exploration of Bocelli’s faith — which is why I asked him about it in our brief interview. I was piqued by the fact that he’d said that reading Tolstoy made him return to Catholicism.

One of the funniest moments in the film comes when Bocelli and his wife, manager Veronica, abruptly get up from a meeting to leave, much to the surprise of the other attendees.

“Meetings that go over 20 minutes are useless,” he said. Kinda true. And spoken like a man on a mission.

Showgirl surprise

One of the fest films I was most anticipating was Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl (Rating: ✭✭✭), starring Pamela Anderson as a past-her-prime Vegas performer whose old-fashioned act is being closed down for good.

At a brief Q&A after the film’s world premiere, Anderson told the rapturous crowd, “I’ve been getting ready my whole life for this role.” After reading Kate Gersten’s script, she felt she was “the only one (who could) do this. I’ve never felt so strongly about something.”

That urgency comes through in her tender, brave performance as Shelley, a 50-something woman who is unprepared when the show’s grizzled manager Eddie (Dave Bautista, in the film’s most understated performance) tells her that the show will be closing in two weeks.

Her younger colleagues Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Marianne (Brenda Song) start auditioning for other shows. But Shelley has no idea what to do with herself. She remembers the glory days of the glitzy revue when the dancers were the toast of the town, sequinned ambassadors for the city.

As the days count down to the final performance, director Coppola (Palo Alto) captures her looking pensive and concerned, the lights of Sin City sparkling in the background. Should she, like former dancer Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), become a cocktail server? Maybe. Shelley also reaches out to her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourde), who’s got a big chip on her shoulder about the way she was raised.

Gersten’s script could be subtler in the way it tells Shelley’s story. But there’s a universality to the situation that hits home, especially for those in the arts. At that post-screening Q&A, both Curtis and Bautista got emotional discussing how brutal and limiting the industry can be and how special this little indie film was. (Curtis delivers a scene-stealing, can’t-look-away performance as Annette, a spray-on-tanned casino worker with a gambling and possibly drinking problem, at one point going all out by dancing to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” while on a shift.)

Anderson, objectified most of her life for her Playboy covers and Baywatch celebrity, has enjoyed an inspiring second act in which she’s written a memoir and starred in an autobiographical Netflix doc, promoting both by walking red carpets sans makeup.

This film, part of what some people are calling her Pamessance, fits right in. Her Shelley is a resourceful, proud and dignified woman who’s somehow let decades go by unexamined. She handles the film’s physical demands beautifully, but also adds depth and pain to her character’s tougher moments involving her daughter, her needy co-workers looking for a mother figure, and one helluva awkward audition scene (headed by another Coppola family cast member).

It’ll be interesting to see if this small film and Anderson’s revealing performance enters the awards conversation in a month or two. Hollywood loves comebacks.

Coming up

The Toronto theatre season has officially begun! I’ve reviewed Qalb — A Journey of the Ego at the Tarragon (co-written and starring the remarkable Deaf artist Dawn Jani Birley), as well as the much-anticipated Crow’s Theatre season opener, Rosmersholm. See reviews here and here.

Look for reviews of Life of Pi, Infinite Life and more soon. For the former, I got to interview Yann Martel, adapter Lolita Chakrabarti and director Max Webster about adapting Martel’s book for theatre. And for the latter, I talked to co-stars Christine Horne and Jean Yoon about acting in an Annie Baker play, sharing a stage with veteran female actors and the differences between acting for TV and film and the theatre. (It’s been seven years since Kim’s Convenience star Yoon appeared onstage.)

Plus, I think I’ll have a ticket giveaway.