I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - A Movie About Wilco

I'm not at all sure what Sam Jones' rockumentary, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, was trying to say. It doesn't really go into the artistic motivations behind Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And there's a lot they could've said -- this album is as much a change for them as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was for the Beatles, and although the real effects of this album haven't been completely felt yet, even a couple of years later, it might have the same impact on popular music in the long run as that Beatles classic. What were the artists feeling at the time? What was pushing them to experiment, to grow?

Well, forget all that, because that's not what Jones shows you. Does he show the true political struggles of the business side of things? Why did Reprise in the end decide not to accept the album, drop Wilco from the label, and let them walk away with the album scott-free? There had to be some real maneuvering and hand-wringing in the company to let that happen. There might have been some serious fall-out, people losing their jobs, folks getting high to forget about the pressure, someone angry at someone else. Nope, didn't see any of that. Reprise was mostly faceless, with no explanation of its actions.

Okay, Jones does show a couple of executives from Reprise, to be specific, one PR guy who was quoted after the fact about how excited he was to get the album but surprised it wasn't accepted, and the ex-president of Reprise who assures us this wouldn't have happened on his watch! It is decidedly one-sided. There's really no true insight into the corporate decision -- however bad it might have been, to let them go.

What about the band's struggle to assert their artistic vision over the "evil" corporate goals of making money? Well, Jeff Tweedy is shown saying, twice, "we weren't very clear on what their issues with the album were." "We didn't get into the details, I didn't want to hear it." Hmmm, I smell a great story, but nope, no story to be seen. There's a bit of chest-thumping and navel-gazing... but that's it. They just rolled over, almost pouted, and ran off. Even that would be a great story, if it had been shown.

I don't have the Wilco timeline firmly in my head, but I'm pretty sure this album was made during a very low time in Jeff Tweedy's drug addiction. You can see it in his face, how hollowed out he looks. But the documentary doesn't go into that. It hints at health issues by showing Tweedy throwing up in one scene, and it hints at his relationship issues by showing a light argument with Jay Bennett, the second song-writer in Wilco, and by showing Tweedy pretty much completely ignore his wife and mother of his two sons. But does it explore the impact of drugs on any topics of artistic motivation of the album, Jeff's alienation from his family, or the eventual dismissal of Jay Bennett by Tweedy? No. Again, where's the story? Where's the sense of historical documentation? This might have been during Jeff's recovery, again I'm not sure, and again -- great story possibility, but it was ignored.

What was Sam Jones trying to say? What did he say? After an hour and a half of some great black and white footage of studio out-takes, practices, and a couple of gigs, I didn't get any sense of history. I didn't get any sense of biography, or documenting the story, or who the band was. What the hell year did this take place in? Over what sort of time frame? They hint a little bit that its over a few months, but which months?

For that matter, who the hell are these Wilco guys anyway? If you didn't already know, you sure wouldn't know afterwards. There's absolutely no context, no introduction. We're just tossed in the story, what little there is, head-first, deep-end, sinking or swimming on our own knowledge of the band.

After reading the IMDB entry for this documentary, I learned that this was Sam Jones' first film. He was actually a photographer before this. Now it all makes sense! This is just a moving photograph! And it's a beautiful one.

I love the grainy, gritty, black and white with low, natural lighting. The presentation of the cities they travel in, the studio itself, and the intimate settings of the interviews are as fluid and as abstract as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot itself.

It's a beautiful film with some beautiful music in it. But don't watch this movie if you want to learn about the heart and soul of Wilco. If you're interested in the where's, when's, and most importantly, why's... skip this one.

Worth a rental, yes, but definitely not worth buying.