This is Spinal Tap (1984)

 

This is Spinal Tap

Everything starts somewhere and for mockumentaries it likely happened with “This is Spinal Tap”. I am quite certain that the verité comedy had already been in place for some time (“Real Life” from 1979 comes to mind), but the format of presenting a movie as a documentary, while actually making fun of the subject is often attributed to “This is Spinal Tap”.

We are introduced to the “filmmaker” Martin Di Bergi (Rob Reiner himself, the actual director of this movie), who tells us that he is a long-time fan of the band and wants to make a concert movie based on their tour of the United States. As the filmmaker, he then proceeds by showing up here and there in the movie, either to comment or to interfere with the tour.

Of the band we particularly follow lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) with keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff) and drummer Mick Shrimpton (R.J. Parnell) more in the background. The band started out as a very mellow flower-power band in the sixties, but then turned to heavy metal or at least the glam-rock version of it, now having the reputation of being the loudest band in Brittain (cranking volume up to 11!). It is understood that they used to be a really big name but is having less success of late.

The American tour is supposed to be a promotion tour of the new album “Smell the Glove”, but there are problems right from the outset as the American record label does not want to print the cover, which is considered sexist (which, from the description of it, is an understatement). The manager of the band, Ian Faith (Tony Hendra), desperately trying to keep it all together, lands a compromise with an all-black cover that satisfy no-one.

The tour is, to say the least, chaotic. Many venues are cancelled or moved to far more humble locations. We see the band interact, both with themselves and the press, and in both cases we get a lot of the tropes on moronic rock musicians. There are some, but sadly few, clips of them actually playing at concerts. Those parts are great, though, if you listen to the lyrics. Those lyrics are simply amazing.

Midway through the tour David’s girlfriend Jeanine (June Chadwick) shows up. She quickly sets herself up as a band member off stage and challenges Ian to his great chagrin. Her ideas are even more moronic than the band’s own and the whole thing explodes with both Ian and Nigel walking out on the band.

The entire movie is a joke, of course. It is a parody of the touring rock band, mocking all the tropes on those. The band members are more air-headed than most, the lyrics totally out there, the attitudes in place, and of course of money-people who are only there when things are going well.

The interesting thing is that all this is played for real. Everybody stays in character and take themselves seriously. They are over the top, but nobody plays over the top. Add to this that all the dialogue is improvised, and you get this real documentary feel to the movie. A documentary of a crazy, but quite real world. There are times where it gets totally absurd as with the pod on stage that does not open, trapping Derek inside or the 18-inch version of Stonehenge on stage with dancing leprechauns. But it is dealt with by the band as serious incidents, crazy, but real and so it works (not to mention the Jazz-Odyssey incident).

It is this balance of keeping the craziness real that is the key to “This is Spinal Tap”. Had this just been about making fun of rock musicians, this would not have been half as funny. As it is, the verité element is so well developed that we believe in the band even though they are stupider than toothpaste. As it happens, I read that several famous musicians are themselves fans of the movie, notably Sting, because this is the story of their experience, and they can see the fun of it.

Although hours and hours of material was shot, it is cooked down to only  82 minutes and I think that was a wise choice. There are simply limits to how long you can draw out a joke. As it is, I was having a lot of fun watching this one, but I am not certain it would have lasted another hour.

Researching this, I looked up the story of Christopher Guest. It is quite amazing. I want to watch a movie about him, his life and family.