Clapton’s riffs on life compelling Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars (M)
134 mins ★★★★
Similar in style to Listen to Me Marlon, Asif Kapadia’s Amy or Brett Morgan’s Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Lili Fini Zanuck’s look at the life of Eric ‘‘Slowhand’’ Clapton offers plenty of visual treats and audio gems.
Best known as a director of the Jason Patric-starring 1991 drug drama Rush, Zanuck’s ‘‘audio-montage’’ highlights just how chaotic and pockmarked with tragedy the legendary guitarist’s life and career have been.
Through interviews with friends, family, bandmates and the man himself, we learn how he discovered the woman who raised him was actually his grandmother, his battle with the bottle (the movie’s subtitle potentially has more than one meaning) and other substances, his love of the blues and his initial disdain for fame.
Despite having boasted groupies (nicknamed the Clapton Clique) right from his first appearances with The Yardbirds in the mid-1960s, he laments how no one listened to the music fellow popstars The Beatles were making and recounts how he decided to walk way from his own band just after they released their massive hit – For Your Love – believing they had ‘‘sold out’’.
That’s one of many intimate and unguarded admissions Clapton and others make in this insightful, fascinating and surprisingly frank documentary.
A hagiography this ain’t. Former girlfriend Charlotte Martin describes him as ‘‘always running away from something’’ and a man who preferred to ‘‘riff on his guitar’’ in preference to ‘‘proper communication’’, while Clapton himself admits at the height of his alcohol abuse, ‘‘I was chauvinistic, fascistic and semi-racist’’.
And yet, as the likes of the late BB King point out, he was also a champion of ‘‘black music’’, who opened doors for many artists like King.
Enthralling and enlightening in equal measure, Life in 12 Bars offers such delights as footage of a young Bob Dylan watching Clapton on his hotel room’s telly and audio of a conversation between the latter and Jimi Hendrix. - James Croot