Sunshine and tears

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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24 September

Last night, seeing a film about John Otway, I laughed more than I have in a while. To-night, in a film about a concert in tribute to Kate McGarrigle and her life and work, the tears flowed.

Taking Otway first, Rock and Roll's Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie (2013) was a very fair title - a man of great energy and sometimes financially crippling enthusiasm, he showed how it was possible to book venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and The London Palladium and make the gigs work.

Never one not to doubt his own intuition, and to try to impress a girl, he persuaded the company that had just signed him as a rising punk star to release, as his next single, an instrumental version of a song of his, played by full orchestra. At another time, when a company was reluctant about a single, he dummied up copies as if on their label, got them to the media, and thereby shamed the company into agreeing to the release, because the single had been played as if it were one of theirs.

As I said to Otway in the bar afterwards, when I briefly spoke to him, he had outclassed Warhol and Marshall McLuhan - this was the man who, through early use of the Internet and e-mail and with a willing crew of fans, galvanized them into getting a single into the Top 10 (at number 9) for his fiftieth birthday, having left it to the fan-base, as scrutinized by The Electoral Reform Society, to vote for what they wanted the single to be.

Taking the knocking comments in good heart, and even making quite a few himself, Otway showed himself, both in the film and before and afterwards, to be thoroughly entertaining. We never quite heard how we afforded the £60,000 deposit that he lost on seeking to finance a world tour by chartered jet for his fans and him, and the price-tag of £3,000 per head if all subscribed to fill it was admitted to have priced too many out of the market for the subscriptions to be any better than half, but he did not seem bothered - any more than, when asked about the Bentley that - although not a driver - he had lashed out on with his first advance, he seemed troubled that he had soon been forced to sell it.

The film was a little rough around the edges, but, again, Otway had had the vision to get it made and have his fans fill the Odeon in Leicester Square, and that suited him well. As one who knew nothing about him, I was entertained and impressed.


With Kate McGarrigle, I had grown up listening to the self-titled album that her sister Anna and she made (and had even seen the sisters once when they played at The Corn Exchange in Cambridge), and needed no persuading of her credentials. What was patent here, in Sing Me The Songs that Say I live You : A Concert for Kate McGarrigle was the love of her children (by Loudon Wainwright III), Rufus and Martha Wainwright, both strong singers, of Anna and other members of the family, and those such as Teddy Thompson, Emmylou Harris and Norah Jones, who played in the filmed concert of Kate's music that formed the basis of this film (recorded at The Town Hall in New York).

Hearing how alike to her mother's voice Martha's now is, seeing the footage that the family had shared with the film-makers, the performance of several songs from that first album, and accounts of Kate in life and near to and at death (at the age of 63) - all made an immensely emotional experience, as it did for these members of the family and their friends, but who gave of their very best in Kate's memory.

Only, perhaps, one or two songs beyond what was bearable in length, this film really did allow one to cherish what had been good and true about the song-writing and performing of this fun-loving Canadian musician, and to feel that, although one was grieving for her, it was a powerful celebration of her music and person, carefully filmed, varied, and with gorgeous sound that was worthy of all who had contributed, which sounded just wonderful in Festival Central's Screen 3 !



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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)