Standing in the Shadows of Motown | Review

Documentary has got soul but is missing out on the funk.

Inside Detroit, Michigan there was a not to small musical movement that was called Motown. Inside Motown there were plenty of big sounds behind the big names. The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes looked good because of the people that were only a couple of footsteps behind-those who were hidden by the shadows. The Funk brothers are now a bunch of crooners, but like all grandfathers there are plenty of fun stories that need to be told.

This book adaptation in documentary form is set up in a three part timeline of sorts, explaining their troubled beginnings, to going into the relatively easy successes, until the final extinction of the sounds that were replaced by West Coast ideas. The funnier more interesting parts come from the anecdotal stories of how the musicians were brought together and how the music was made all this aided by some black and white pictures and by actual live for the camera jam sessions with all of their instruments of play. However, tracking back to the studio doesn’t give off the same magical feeling as witnessed in the much better documentary of Wim Wender’s Buena Vista Social Club. I think that under a different treatment of which would have focused on what each individually brought to the group would have been preferred to how the funk was put into the brothers rather than the bothersome constant interference of a reunion concert with contemporary artists that looks like a bunch of commercials breaks between a great set of stories.

It may be especially from a viewer that was born in the disco 70’s to appreicate this film at its just value. Standing in the Shadows of Motown could have hooked me if they had brought in those who had benefited from the sounds of the Funk Brothers-Gaye is absent due to obvious reasons, but where was the Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross or Steve Wonder who were also there for the ride? This is an ambitious doc that tries to give us a little too much of everything-focusing on the surviving members and their stories with archival documents is the most interesting but non-pertinent re-enactments and new performances hardly explains why they were better than the Beatles and everyone else combined.

Rating 2 stars