SUM OF THE PARTS

This is very disappointing! It was such a big deal for fans and press when announced that BBC was making a Genesis documentary and every member would contribute. But, here we have a documentary that its focus is the their 80's phase, where Steve Hackett doesn't exist and such classics for the band as Foxtrot and Nursery Crime are 2 minutes worthy of screen for the director...

Not to mention that many facts were not included (such as Calling All Stations - ps. I don't care about the quality, a documentary should tell a story) and they picked like 5 different people to talk about the band, supposedly very important music related people, but actually... no one know who they are...

Not to mention too that one of the things every fan was expecting (the interview with all of them together) was mashed up to like 5 minutes worth of material. Pretty pathetic really. No one can possibly really learn the history of the band with this and this just push the boundaries of really bad documentaries for classic musical acts.

All about expectations

I've witnessed some delightful gnashing of teeth over this documentary film. Apparently some of our fellow reviewers believed they were going to get a definitive career overview that covered every single thing they love about this band in 90 minutes time. It doesn't work that way. Certainly they could have handled it better. They could have taken more time and they could have focused on less stuff, getting really deep into the periods that are of utmost interest to fans. Not often do these kinds of projects turn out as good as they could. So what we end up with is the completely predictable modern-attention-span documentary, where music "experts" walk us common folk through each album of the bands long career. Analysis is superficial, there's little we haven't seen before, and the band members themselves seem intent on showing as little enthusiasm as possible. One does wonder why they bothered.

And yet, I enjoyed watching it very much. I'll probably never watch it again but it was worth the price to watch once. The bang for the buck is in the new interviews. Call me a masochist but I really do enjoy watching the guys in this band sound all stuffy and self-important, yes, even Tony. I enjoyed watching the guys interact as a group for what is likely the final time. Of course I would have preferred to have a true Genesis expert asking them detailed questions about various tracks and getting into the nitty gritty, but that isn't what they wanted here. They wanted essentially a celebratory promo for their back catalog, hoping that those who watch it will want to dive back into some of the albums they haven't heard in years. Maybe buy some remasters. The bonus section features some extended interviews with each member but they really don't flesh things out a great deal more. I do recommend this to fans who can go into it with reasonable expectations. It's a fun 90 minutes with your favorite band as they ride off into the sunset. Just don't set your sights any higher.

Surprisingly I'm only the third reviewer for this anticipated GENESIS documentary. I saw it on Finnish TV 1½ times (I stopped the second watching and went to sleep at the point when Phil Collins takes the central role). I had a look at the ratings in amazon.com, also there you see very critical reception but some five-star ratings as well. I sympathize my friend's (frankly overrated) five-star rating for the newspaper's TV page, because this film includes some rare old clips very precious for long-time fans, and it's a special case in itself to see Banks, Gabriel, Rutherford, Collins and Hackett together looking back at the band's history. You can sense many little but revealing things about the personal chemistry and all that.

The formation of the band in Charterhouse school... The departure of Anthony Phillips... The arrival of Collins and Hackett... The increase of stylistic uniqueness and stage theatrics with each subsequent album classic... Each archival picture, whether still or live, is pure gold. There were even some gig clips from the Trespass days, wow! But in retrospect, it must be admitted that the Gabriel era is indeed handled very quickly. Also the quartet era for which I have a deep fondness too.

The big flaws come from that on. Gosh how much time is given to Phil Collins' pop career and the smash hit side of Genesis. It wasn't even news for me to hear especially Tony Banks being much prouder of the commercial success than the prog past. BTW he seems to be the nastiest person of the five, the hardest one to co-operate with. I appreciate that Peter Gabriel's solo career is dealt with respect (though again the representation is pretty much hit oriented). But it's a terrible crime how ignored Steve Hackett's solo career is in this documentary. Nor he's given much room in conversations either. It's certainly not only because of being a quieter person, for I've heard that he didn't like the film. Understandably so. Of course also Anthony Phillips' career would have deserved some attention. Ray Wilson is not even mentioned, which makes another gap in the Genesis history.

Summa summarum. No matter how disappointing it turns out to be, I think this documentary is a (one- time) must for a Genesis fan for all the little jewels it contains, even if they're just a small minority compared to the dealing of the era that for us progheads don't mean that much.