It's a gutsy call! Let's make a movie about Jimi Hendrix and then not include any of his music. I don't think many would attempt such a venture, but John Ridley, the Oscar - winning writer of 12 Years a Slave was prepared to give it a dig. Ultimately he has produced an interesting perspective of the master guitarist, though fans will miss the dynamic of listening to Hendrix's own playing and the film is arguably a good 15 minutes too long, given its limited subject content.
The film tells the story of Hendrix's career beginnings, through his arrival in London, the creation of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and the beginning of his fame after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. It's not a full biopic as it only covers about 15 months of his burgeoning career. But it does succeed in giving the audience a fairly god idea of why he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units, such as fuzz tone, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe in mainstream rock and we see him frequently tinkering with guitars and talking to others about imaginatively producing the sounds he wants to make.
André Benjamin gives a very convincing performance as Hendrix, both with guitar and without. There's a big cast and helpfully many real historical figures are identified with an onscreen printed credit, even if not introduced by the dialogue being spoken. I would have preferred less of the fairly extensive interactions between Hendrix and various girl friends in a movie of some 2 hours length. I guess this was necessary given the music restrictions imposed, but it seemed that the same ground was covered with a range of characters, rather than one significant person. Thankfully we are not overburdened with copious, cliched scenes of drunken and/or drugged excesses. But we are left in no doubt, that as a person, Jimi, whilst generally quite sociable, was still very much out there.
Have no idea why the Hendrix Estate would not give approval for his music to be used in what ends up being a pretty sympathetic look at the iconoclastic musician, but it does end up undeniably detracting from the value of the film as a life story. Waddy Wachtel does a pretty adequate job imitating Jimi on various covers, but as the film progresses one finds one's self thirsting to hear original Hendrix classics such as Purple Haze, or just The Man, Rolling Stone ranked as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time, play or sing. But alas, that never eventuates.
The film tells the story of Hendrix's career beginnings, through his arrival in London, the creation of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and the beginning of his fame after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. It's not a full biopic as it only covers about 15 months of his burgeoning career. But it does succeed in giving the audience a fairly god idea of why he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units, such as fuzz tone, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe in mainstream rock and we see him frequently tinkering with guitars and talking to others about imaginatively producing the sounds he wants to make.
André Benjamin gives a very convincing performance as Hendrix, both with guitar and without. There's a big cast and helpfully many real historical figures are identified with an onscreen printed credit, even if not introduced by the dialogue being spoken. I would have preferred less of the fairly extensive interactions between Hendrix and various girl friends in a movie of some 2 hours length. I guess this was necessary given the music restrictions imposed, but it seemed that the same ground was covered with a range of characters, rather than one significant person. Thankfully we are not overburdened with copious, cliched scenes of drunken and/or drugged excesses. But we are left in no doubt, that as a person, Jimi, whilst generally quite sociable, was still very much out there.
Have no idea why the Hendrix Estate would not give approval for his music to be used in what ends up being a pretty sympathetic look at the iconoclastic musician, but it does end up undeniably detracting from the value of the film as a life story. Waddy Wachtel does a pretty adequate job imitating Jimi on various covers, but as the film progresses one finds one's self thirsting to hear original Hendrix classics such as Purple Haze, or just The Man, Rolling Stone ranked as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time, play or sing. But alas, that never eventuates.