American Symphony (2023)

PG-13 for some strong language?  I honestly don't remember any strong language.  Mind you, I was completely over-emotional about the whole thing.  It could have been cursing the entire time and I wouldn't have remembered it.  The thing is, I wanted to show my kid this movie and now I have to question everything? Oh yeah!  The f-bomb on the wall of the hot tub!  Anyway, PG-13.

DIRECTOR: Matthew Heineman

I wasn't ready.  Guys, I just wasn't ready.  First of all, I didn't know that American Symphony was a doc, let alone a rock doc.  That's all fine.  I can pivot on that pretty easily. Since I knew nothing about it, I can sit down and watch a documentary.  Then you give me a rock doc where the subject of the documentary seems like the sweetest dude ever and that's just bonus.  But then you make it about the love story between Jon Batiste and his wife who is fighting leukemia?  Yeah, you officially crushed me.  

Listen, I don't know who decided that this documentary wouldn't be incuded in the Best Docs category, but shame on you.  We've had some amazing music documentaries in the past and this year could have used some American Symphony. I've always been honest with my lack of knowledge when it comes to music.  I know a ton about movies, TV, comic books, novels, and video games.  Music has always been my weak spot.  It's always been a case of taking a long time to bond with a musician.  It takes me a long time to decide whether or not I like an album or not.  This documentary?  This documentary right here?  I'm now a fan of Jon Batiste. I knew nothing about him outside of the name and now I feel like I want to attend every concert of his...ever.  Is it because of the movie being so moving?  Do I deal with mortality in a weird and confusing way?  Sure do.  But beyond that, the man is incredibly talented.  

There's that fine line in artists.  My wife brought this up, but I get where she's going with this.  Musicians, the truly talented ones, often are a little more eccentric than your average bear.  They often become incredibly hard to relate to. They are so passionate about their work that it takes a very intense person to become so granular about what they do.  It's encouraged in the community.  (I'm not part of the community.  I'm not really a part of any artisitic community.  I'm a high school teacher who lives outside of Cincinnati who likes to write.)  But there is all this theory out there that encourages creatives to think beyond the immediate emotional response to artwork.  A good artist needs to go to the theory and see beyond the "good" and "bad" of art.  Instead, they need to live a life as a bit of an eccentric.  Often, these personalities are incredibly frustrating.  They are divorced from the problems of the every day.  Jon Batiste, thankfully, is not this.  He's got his things.  I can't deny that I'm watching this man and thinking, "Well, that's a bit much."  

But the big pull towards this movie is how, as weird as someone can get about music (I'd like to remind you that Jon Batiste is tame compared to a lot of artists), he's so fundamentally human.  It isn't simply because he is taking care of his wife with leukemia.  That would take away so much of her agency.  Instead, it is only part of the tapestry that we see in this documentary.  There's something so modest and so humble about Jon Batiste.  He's this guy who plays music every day.  It's mind blowing that he was the house band on The Late Show because he got Album of the Year.  In my mind, that's like Taylor Swift agreeing to being the house band.  It still blows my mind that the Roots are a house band as well. But at the same time, he's just a guy who wants to be at home with his wife.  He's a guy who has a hard time getting out of bed.  He has to get out of bed, like we all do.  But he has to get out of bed because he has to play Carnegie Hall.  That's the thing that is very odd.  The cult of celebrity has been talked about so much and it often is a story of corruption and change.  If anything, he's becoming more and more human as he gets bigger and bigger.

That's the role his wife plays.  It's almost a little bit unfair to her to define her as the one with leukemia.  Yes, that instantly tells us what Jon Batiste is focused on instead of building celebrity.  But more than that, while Suleika is in remission, it is about building a healthy and loving relationship.  Both of them are artists.  They are very different artists, but they are artists nonetheless.  They get the need to encourage each other's creativity. Golly, this makes such a good Valentine's Day watch because, the sicker that Suleika gets, the more you see his love pouring out for her.  The fact that he gets married to her as things get tougher only screams to the commitment that he's always had to this woman. It's this intimate affair, with a few close friends telling stories on a floor.  For all of the cool stuff that we see him do, including the finale of the Carnegie Hall performance, that's the moment I'll take away from the whole thing.  He has this money and ability to make a huge hullabaloo and have the most expensive wedding of all time.  Instead, the entire movie is about two people living within their means.  Maybe things are a little nicer than most people could afford.  But the things that they really need are paper, paints, a piano, and each other.

There's a really fascinating B-story within the narrative as well, the story of being Black and young in a world of gatekeeping.  This isn't one of those stories about how racist the world is.  It is, but it never has that moment that we see in a lot of films where Jon Batiste wouldn't be allowed to play in clubs.  Instead, he reads about how people are so skeptical to be considered in all of these categories in the Emmys.  I know.  Different problems than a lot of us have.  But we shouldn't complain.  He's a musician.  He lives in a different world, thus gatekeeping would look different to him.  The thing about genre is that it is really hard to pin down.  Any time we deal with genre, there's a certain spectrum with a large amount of give and take when establishing what falls into what genre. Yet, there are all these people screaming out that he shouldn't be considered a classical musician if he's a jazz musician.  There's all these people who are so defensive of things that are subjectively sacred that it's telling to think that this man suffers because he created something that can't be easily pinned down.

That speech at the Emmys?  What?!  How do I not have that speech painted on my walls in my classroom?  I was just thinking how American Symphony might be in my Top 5 for 2023 and the entire speech at the end was about how art finds people at the right time when they need it. It's such a gorgeous speech and I want that everywhere I go.  And as much as I may fundamentally believe that speech, I also want to remind myself that I am guilty of not always listening to that idea that is so key to my entire philosophy.  He's this guy who keeps getting criticism after criticism because people like what they like.  He's just this great and honest person.  Sometimes art isn't for everyone.  It was made for everyone, but we bring so much of ourselves into our tastes that it is a crime to tell people what is good and what is terrible. I mean, I'm currently writing a blog unpacking movies.  Part of the natural end to that is evaluative.  But that speech is so important.  Man, Jon Batiste is a smart guy.

This might be my favorite documentary this year.  Again, super disappointed that it wasn't nominated.  Now, again, since I don't know the music community, I don't know how many waves this documentary made.  For all I know, it might be required reading for the music scene.  But I know that I only saw it because of the Best Song nomination (which would give him two of the letters for EGOT.  Too bad it's going to go to "I'm Just Ken").  I know that often film nerds don't follow my arbitrary rules for what constitutes an opinion about an Academy Award.  I just think that this movie needs to be seen.