Summary
A dynamic dive into DEVO’s avant-garde legacy, blending music, activism, and art with Chris Smith’s signature flair.
It makes sense that a documentary about the career of the avant-garde New Wave band DEVO is just as intriguing as the band themselves. Of course, even putting them in that narrow bucket feels like trying to staple jelly to a wall.
If anyone is up to the task, it’s award-winning filmmaker Chris Smith, who has previously untangled complex webs in Fyre, Tiger King, and more recently Wham!. Yet the story of DEVO is more than simply the potted history of a band. The story of the band—who in their classic form consisted of the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob), the Casales (Gerald and a different Bob), and Alan Myers—is also a briefing on activism, art, and experimentation.
Indeed, their story truly begins when a joke turns serious. During the early days of the ‘de-evolution’ concept while attending Kent State University in Ohio, the infamous 1970 shooting deaths of student protesters by the National Guard galvanized their philosophy.
DEVO is one of those bands that most people conceptually know, whether through their distinctive design aesthetic or the breakthrough singles that have permeated pop culture. The band describes themselves as a “musical laxative for a constipated world.” Through Smith’s film, you’ll learn of their pioneering work in the production of ‘some kind of music films,’ their series of rejections, their breakthrough at CBGBs and on SNL, finding fans in the likes of Neil Young and David Bowie, and how the grind of success eventually wore them out.
From early performance footage and beyond, this is both a wonderful introduction and overview as much as it is an important archival collection. Yes, director Smith captures a variety of talking heads, including the three surviving members of the original lineup. Yet he also applies the same cut-up, Dadaist, anti-establishment, and nerdy approach to the visuals that infused DEVO’s outlook.
Although this material could have easily filled out a mini-series, Smith maintains this eye-catching approach through a punchy runtime of just over 90 minutes. So, whether you only know “Whip It” or are a deep collector of Mark Mothersbaugh’s dozens of film scores, this is just the film, just the film, the film U want.
2024 | USA, UK | DIRECTOR: Chris Smith | Cinematographer: Chris Smith | CAST: Jerry Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Robert Mothersbaugh | DISTRIBUTOR: Melbourne International Film Festival | RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8-24 August 2024 (Melbourne International Film Festival)
