John Mellencamp: It's About You Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
An intimate portrait of music legend John Mellencamp, It's About You is a revealing documentary both about the man and his music and about the culture that inspires him.
John "Couger" Mellencamp's brand of blue collar heartland rock has always been spare and sinewy. But for his latest album, 2010's No Better Than
This, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and thirteen-time Grammy nominee decided to strip down to the bare essentials of his craft, recording in
mono with a single vintage microphone wired to a 1950s-era reel-to-reel tape machine. While out on a summer tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson,
Mellencamp brought along this portable rig and set it up in musically significant historic locations—The First African Baptist Church, Sun Studios in
Memphis, a hotel room in San Antonio where blues legend Robert Johnson once stayed—hoping to channel a faded Americana vibe. There were no
overdubs, no stereo mixing, no Pro Tools trickery, just Mellencamp and his spartan band spaced out around the mic, doing take after take until they got
it right. By today's music production standards, this is a primitive way to work, but that just shows how far the industry has gotten away from the
folksy authenticity of its origins.
When Mellencamp decided he wanted the tour and recording sessions to be documented and turned into a film, he called on his longtime friend,
renowned Western photographer Kurt Markus, who came up with an equally back-to-basics idea for how to do it. Kurt and his twenty-one-year-old son
Ian came along on tour, armed only with jimmy-rigged Super 8mm cameras, a ton of film cartridges, and a small audio recorder. No sound guys, no
bulky lights, no expensive equipment. When it comes to filmmaking, you can't get any simpler than Super 8, the stuff of 1970's home movies and
trial-and-error student films. The nearly forgotten medium has an unmistakable look that's much-coveted in a digital age nostalgic for the analog past;
the footage is grainy and soft, lightly scratched and spotted, with burned-in light leaks and lens flares galore. If you've used any of the apps that
attempt to antique your smartphone pics and video, you know the aesthetic I'm talking about. But this is the real deal.
Part travelogue, part concert film, and part behind-the-scenes documentary, It's About You follows Mellencamp at a polite distance, more fly-
on-the-wall than in-your-face. If you're expecting The Cougar's soul to be laid bare in tell-all interviews about his personal life and creative process,
you're bound to be disappointed. And don't expect Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson to show up either—they remain frustratingly off-camera, presumably
unwilling to participate in the film. In his ponderous narration, Markus recalls seeing Dylan standing under an umbrella in the rain, and wishes he could
have snapped a photo: "The picture can only be what it is," he says, "unrealized." Bummer.
What Markus does capture on film is the forlorn state of downtowns across the country, abandoned in a flight to the suburbs, leaving behind empty
storefronts and weed-strewn sidewalks. He philosophizes about "the decay of America," noting that "instead of the rest of the world becoming like us,
we've become like the rest of the world." A big un-ironic boo-hoo to the death of U.S. exceptionalism, basically. I get what Markus is trying to do—
mirror the tone of Mellencamp's aint that America-style songs about the broken dreams of the working class—but his psuedo-poetic voiceovers
are far too flowery. (It probably doesn't help that his voice sounds exactly like radio host and Motel 6 spokesman Tom Bodett's. I kept waiting
for him to say "we'll leave the light on for ya.") On his personal website, Markus describes himself as "a failed writer" who "turned to photography," and
that's easy enough to believe.
The film is better when Markus confines himself to what he does best—observing what's going on around him. The concert footage has a terrific
energy, and minus the (mostly) contemporary hair styles and clothing of the audience members, you could easily mistake it for being shot in the '70s.
More fascinating, though, are the recording sessions, overseen by producer extraordinaire T-Bone Burnett. In Savannah, they set up inside the oldest
continually operating black church in America, a former stop on the underground railroad, where escaping slaves would hide beneath the floorboards in
the sanctuary. Later, in the holy of rock 'n' roll holies—Sun Studios—Mellencamp stands on an X made with electrical tape on the floor, marking the
spot where Elvis Presley once stood while cutting his first records. And in Room 414 of San Antonio's Gunter Hotel, Mellencamp tries to conjure the
musical spirit of Robert John, the enigmatic bluesman who—as legend has it—sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads. Some might wonder if
Mellencamp has struck a similar deal, as his new material actually lives up to the album's title and is arguably the best work he's done in years.
Unfortunately, you can imagine the film being "better than this," but that shouldn't discourage fans from seeking it out.
Here's what the end credits says about the way It's About You was filmed: "This film was shot entirely with Beaulieu Super 8 cameras, modified
by technicians at Pro8mm, using Kodak's Vision 3 500T color negative stock. Digital mastering and colorization by Phil Vigeant, Pro8mm, on a Millenium
II HD scanner." If you're not familiar with Pro8mm, they're a company based out of Burbank that's basically keeping Super 8 alive, selling tweaked
cameras with 1.58:1 widescreen gates and doing high definition transfers of 8mm footage for all stripes of filmmakers, from hobbyists to Hollywood. I
might be wrong, but I believe It's About You is the first full-length film shot exclusively on Super 8 to come to Blu-ray, and it looks wonderful,
with a 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation. Of course, since a Super 8 negative frame is so small compared to 16mm and 35mm, the image is unavoidably
soft and extremely grainy. It is what it is, though, and if you've ever seen Super 8 footage on DVD, you'll be impressed here by the comparative
level of clarity. Color fares nicely too; the image looks dense, with good contrast, and only occasionally suffers the effects of under or over exposure.
(Blown out highlights for the former, crushed shadows for the later.) DNR and edge enhancement are completely absent, and while the print features
occasional scratches and flecks, along with white-vignetted corners, this is all part of Super 8's lo-fi charm.
It's About You features an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 track that gets the job done, and in general, the mix is far less lo-fi than the visuals.
Markus's son Ian supposedly captured all the audio while filming separately with a digital camera, but I'm assuming this was only used for the
interview/behind-the-scenes segments. The music at the concerts sounds pretty clearly like it was captured from the mixing board, providing clean
sound with a decent dynamic range. There's certainly no muddling or muffling, and no hisses or dropouts. Markus' voiceover narration is crisp, sitting at
the top of the mix, and the occasional snatches of conversation we hear are easily understood too. For those that need or want them, the disc includes
optional English subtitles.
A musical journey through small-town America, It's About You attempts to visually capture the vibe of John Mellencamp's hard-knock blue collar
songs, using vintage-looking Super 8 cameras for added authenticity. Director Kurt Markus' narration gets a bit too ornate trying to describe the now-
deserted state of Main Street, U.S.A., but when the film sticks to the music—The Coug recording in Sun Studios, or playing for crowds of thousands—it
really sings. Longtime Mellencamp followers will definitely get a kick out of this. For fans only.
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