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William Shatner`s Gonzo Ballet Hits it Big in... |
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William Shatner`s Gonzo Ballet Hits it Big in Music City
Category:
Entertainment
Posted 9 months ago by
Big Screen Ent
 The 2009 Nashville Film festival has featured quite an eclectic mix of films this year. One of the biggest events at the festival was easily the world premiere of William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet. The film is a mix of documentary and live performance. A few years ago, Shatner and musician Ben Folds collaborated on what ended up being a fantastic album called “Has Been”. The album features some of the country’s best musicians performing with Shatner on songs he wrote the lyrics for. Even Henry Rollins participates in a spoken word call and return with Shatner on one song. The album is definitely offbeat but it’s also funny, poignant, and more real than Shatner has shown himself to be in years. World renowned dance choreographer Margo Sappington heard an interview with Shatner discussing the album on NPR and after listening to the album many times, she decided that she wanted to craft a ballet using Shatner’s music as a base. This film tells the story of the making of the album and the making of the ballet.The best parts of the film come from Shatner himself as he discusses his life, his previous attempts at musical greatness, and the inspiration for the lyrics. He’s surprisingly humble about all of the decisions he’s made throughout his life, the good ones and the bad ones. There’s an expectation of ego from Shatner partly from his own actions and partly from the mythos built around him by his Star Trek co-stars and a classic Saturday Night Live skit. That ego is there. It has to be in order to do the work that Shatner has chosen in life, but if it’s really as excessive as we’ve all been led to believe he manages to not only keep it in check during the film, but also during the Q&A after the film. What seems like more of a possibility is that Shatner, now 78 years old, has finally begin to settle down and just relax with his place in pop culture. He does mention during the film that he’s sore from all of the jabs at him regarding his previous attempt at music. I’m not a fan of dance or of ballet so with that in mind, this film may be the perfect way for me to experience this sort of performance. At various points in the film, scenes from a recorded live performance of the ballet are shown music video style. The songs chosen are some of the best on the album, the photography and post production effects are solid, and not being a fan of dance in general, I can still say the dancing is modern and well executed. The one thing that surprised me is that the film wasn’t shot in high definition. It was shot digitally but with standard def cameras. Sure it all looks great but a film like this seems tailor made for HD. There’s a lot of footage of the actual recording of the album included here and some of those scenes are the best in the film. In particular, the recording session that Shatner and Henry Rollins did together. Apparently there were lyrics written but when the two of them got into the studio much of what ended up recorded was adlibbed with the two of them playing off each other. The interview with Rollins is brief but it’s pretty fantastic to hear about his and Shatner’s relationship. The only complaint I can come up with is that the film seems to jump in focus a bit back and forth between the making of the album and the making of the ballet. These two sections of the film often feel like two separate featurettes rather than one cohesive documentary. Shatner manages to tie the sections together through his personal attachment to both projects. The interviews, other than Shatner’s, feel a little bit “making of” but that’s what this film is; a making of the album and the ballet. Overall, the 65 minute film is most interesting because it shows a side to William Shatner that most of us have never seen before and an opportunity to enjoy the great music found on Has Been with some great modern ballet.. 
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