Chapin Eyre

Mr. Muench

January 29, 2020

Documentary review #1 

 

                Going into the documentary, Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives, I had no clue of who Clive was, or how he changed the music industry. I was unsure if I was even going to finish the documentary. But within the first 15 minutes of the documentary, I was hooked. The pace of the film is what kept me interested and connected to it. They wasted no time, and never spent too much time on one time period/section of Clive’s life. The amount of people that the producers were able to interview emphasized how important Clive Davis was to so many people. I can often get bored while watching a documentary that is 2+ hours, but this one kept me interested, and got better over the course of the film.

                The documentary started with Clive’s early life and family which they found great b roll for this section of the film. Majority of this film is b roll due to the amount of photos, and Tv moments Clive had throughout his career. The b roll had the audio from interviews under it (if the b roll didn’t have audio). The b roll was so strong that it could have told the story itself. 

                The pace of the documentary is what kept me hooked. They were able to tell his story in a way that it felt like they were always at the climax of Clives career. The intensity and stakes of the whole documentary got increased overtime because his career just kept getting better and better. This is what kept it so interesting. The goal of a good documentary is to get the audience invested and interested in something they could have no idea about. That is exactly what this documentary did for me. The only piece of this documentary that I found a little strange was the fact that a lot of the b roll wasn’t 4K high definition footage. But when it would cut to the interviews they were some of the sharpest and most modern looking interviews I have seen, it looked like a different film and it was abrupt.  

                   I can only imagine how much footage from Clive’s Career they had to look at in order to make this film. I appreciate it so much more when I think of it like that. They must’ve watched hundreds of hours of footage just to find the few right second needed to go over an interview. I would totally recommend this documentary for anyone who is interested in music or loves a good life story, I knew nothing about Clive when I started watching but it taught me a lot about him and now I feel like I got to know him well. I would give this documentary 5 stars and could even see these type of documentaries becoming a series that Apple puts out about people in the music industry. I enjoyed this documentary very much and thought it was very interesting.