A mighty wind
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | A mighty wind |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Christopher Guest |
| script | Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy |
| production | Karen Murphy |
| music | Christopher Guest |
| camera | Arlene Nelson |
| cut | Robert Leighton |
| occupation | |
| |
A Mighty Wind (German A mighty wind ) is an American mockumentary - feature film from 2003 about a folk music -Wiedervereinigungskonzert in which three folk bands come together for a TV recording after a few decades for the first time again. Christopher Guest was co-author (together with Eugene Levy ), director and composer in one .
The film is used as a reference to a tribute concert to folk music producer Harold Leventhal , which took place in 2003 and at which various of the folk bands managed by Leventhal were reunited. More broadly, the film is a parody of the revival of American folk music and its personalities in the early 1960s. Some of the cast from the films This Is Spinal Tap , Waiting for Guffman, and Best in Show are also reunited in this film, including co-writers Eugene Levy , Catherine O'Hara , Michael McKean , Harry Shearer , Fred Willard , Bob Balaban , Ed Begley Jr. , Jennifer Coolidge , John Michael Higgins , Jane Lynch, and Parker Posey .
The song A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow from the film was nominated for an Oscar in the category " Best Song " at the 76th Annual Academy Awards and performed during the ceremony.
action
The feature film in the style of a documentary about a memorial concert for the fictional folk music producer Irving Steinbloom shows how his children organize a concert after his death, for which they hope to get his three most famous bands together: The Folksmen, The New Main Street Singers and Mitch & Mickey .
The folksmen trio - Mark Shubb, Alan Barrows, and Jerry Palter - were once one of the most popular bands, but haven't performed together in decades. They had several small hits; her most famous song was "Old Joe's Place". Although they haven't played or seen each other for many years, their reunion (a barbecue) is a very positive affair with folksmen hugging each other.
The New Main Street Singers are the second generation of the original Main Street Singers, composed by George Menschell, the only surviving member of the original group. Menschell sings and holds a guitar that he cannot play. The cast includes Terry Bohner and his wife Laurie Bohner. Laurie, a former porn actress, and her husband are founders of Witches in Nature's Colors (WINC), a group of modern witches who worship the power of color. Another member is Sissy Knox, a former juvenile offender and daughter of one of the original Main Street Singers members. The group is managed by Mike LaFontaine, whose greatest fame was the failed sitcom Wha 'Happened? from the 1970s. The show lasted less than a season and has largely been forgotten, but LaFontaine constantly quotes the eponymous slogan throughout the film, which at most irritates the other guests. The group, which is otherwise all white, includes a Filipino-American member, Mike Maryama. The band is also known for its unnecessarily complex nine-part harmonies.
Mitch Cohen and Mickey Crabbe were Mitch & Mickey, a former couple who released seven albums years before the film was shot, until their dramatic breakup. Mickey appeared to have left the relationship behind and married a medical device salesman, but Mitch had an emotional breakdown and never fully recovered from the breakup. Her most famous song was "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow", at the end of which the couple kissed on stage.
The three groups, who have sunk to various levels of musical irrelevance since their respective heyday, agree to the reunification performance, which is set to take place at New York's The Town Hall and will be broadcast live on PBN (a reference to PBS). The film features rehearsals for the show as well as interviews with the cast talking about their activities over the past few years and their feelings for a revival. The folksmen are very enthusiastic and work hard to relearn their songs and hope to delight the audience. Mitch and Mickey (especially Mitch) are very concerned about how it's going to go.
The show itself is running, with only two problems: The song The Folksmen want to open their part with is played first by the New Main Street Singers (a song called "Never Did No Wanderin '," which the Folksmen get in a rough way (singing emotional ways that match the spirit of the song while the New Main Street Singers play it in their usual upbeat, happy way), and Mitch temporarily disappears minutes before his performance with Mickey. It turns out that Mitch bought a rose for Mickey, which she gratefully accepts when they go on stage. Mitch and Mickey play "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," and after an exciting break, they end up making the long-awaited kiss. In the finale, all three acts sing "A Mighty Wind" together.
Six months after the concert, the film then jumps to interviews with many of the actors, in which they report on subsequent events. Mickey plays "The Sure-Flo Song" (via a medical bladder control device) at her husband's booth. Mitch is writing poetry again and claims to be in a "productive phase". Mickey claims that Mitch overreacted to their kiss on stage, while Mitch insists that Mickey's love for him has re-flared. LaFontaine tries to spark interest in a sitcom with the New Main Street Singers. He wants to call it "Supreme Folk" and let each band member play a Supreme Court judge by day, but folk singers sharing a house by night. The folksmen have reunited, but with Mark Shubb, who is now a transgender woman, she continues to sing in her deep bass voice.
production
inspiration
Several characters in the film are taken from a sketch written by Guest for Saturday Night Live in 1984 . Shearer, Guest and McKean have appeared as The Folksmen on Saturday Night Live , in the film This is Spinal Tap (in which the trio was also shown as a parody of an aging heavy metal band) and occasionally on concert stages. The original idea behind A Mighty Wind was to use the film as a larger narrative vehicle for the fictional group. Fred Willard's slogan phrase is spoken by Tweety in the cartoon short film "Putty Tat Trouble" (1951).
Trivia
Every song featured in the film was written by members of the cast or by Guest's longtime musical contributor, CJ Vanston. The song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow", composed for the film by Michael McKean and his wife Annette O'Toole, was nominated for an Oscar for best original song.
In an interview about the film, O'Toole said that many of the songs were written during the no-fly after the 9/11 attacks when she and McKean had to drive from their Los Angeles home to the location of their television series Smallville in Vancouver .
In the audio commentary on the DVD, Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy pointed out that a scene cut from the finished film explains that Menschell cannot play the guitar. Shortly before a performance of the original Main Street Singers, a mishap left a stain on his shirt, which he covered with his guitar during the performance. In all subsequent appearances, he kept the guitar.
Locations
The "The Town Hall" scenes were filmed in the restored Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.
Reviews
The film received mostly positive reviews. The review-aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 88% rating based on reviews from 173 critics, with the consensus of the sites: “ A Mighty Wind may not be as loudly funny as Guest's previous films, but all the more heartier. ”Roger Ebert, however, said that“ although there were a lot of places where I laughed ”, the film lacks the sharpness of Guest's usual style, perhaps because it“ likes the characters too much ”. Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four.
Awards
Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole were nominated for the Oscar for the best original song with the song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow". The song was also performed at the 76th Academy Awards by Levy and O'Hara (playing her film role). "A Mighty Wind" won a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Film, TV, or Other Visual Media accepted by Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy and Michael McKean at the 46th Grammy Awards.
Grossing results
The film had modest opening day revenues in April 2003 totaling $ 307,931. This was followed by $ 2,112,140 in 133 theaters averaging $ 15,880 per theater. With a domestic grand total of $ 17,583,468 and a foreign grand total of $ 969,240, the film grossed $ 18,750,246 in theaters. The film has not yet been shown in German cinemas.
Web links
- A Mighty Wind in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- A Mighty Wind at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harold Leventhal - As an American folk music promoter, he championed black and female artists. In: The Guardian . October 11, 2005, accessed January 11, 2019 .
- ↑ a b The 76th Academy Awards (2004) Nominees and Winners. In: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . AMPAS, accessed January 11, 2019 .
- ↑ Rebecca Murray, Fred Topel: Interview with Harry Shearer and Michael McKean Two of "A Mighty Wind's" 'Folksmen'. (No longer available online.) In: about.com. Archived from the original on April 6, 2016 ; accessed on March 23, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Putty Tat Trouble in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ A Mighty Wind at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- ↑ Roger Ebert: A Mighty Wind. In: rogerebert.com. April 16, 2003, accessed January 14, 2019 .
