Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here

This is a melancholy trip inward to a very personal phase of Pink Floyd. More than 15-years on the band had achieved a rare pinnacle of success. That success always had the element of loss hovering. After the blockbuster Dark Side of the Moon record there was an intersection of tremendous pressures and changes. The record company, of course, wanted another bombastic sales juggernaut, but the band was searching for where to go and how to get there. There was a fatigue as well as lack of material. It was Roger Waters who gave the band a path. The sad loss of Sad Barrett had a lasting effect and it was time to explore that angle against the band's growing disillusionment of the entire music business machinery. This was a unifying thing members of Pink Floyd could all feel albeit in their own ways guided largely by Roger's hand and writing. David Gilmour rose up to work together with Roger crafting their best. Richard Wright used his long tenor of experience to underpin the dark atmosphere perfectly with Waters. Nick Mason's percussion was never better underneath it all. This one came from deep inside the members of the band and it had a personal resonance that was very different than DSOTM. In other words, a brilliant follow-up album that stood on it's own unique merits. No let down here and in no way riding on coattails. Brilliant. But this review is about this film and what makes it special is how it brings the viewer into the band's work on this amazing recording. Almost by some unexplainable coincidence Syd Barrett appears in the studio on the final mix day of Wish You Were Here. It provoked a strong coda to exactly what the band had been laboring over in jaw-dropping fashion. The film actually makes the viewer often as uneasy as the music evoking a real emotional response. This was an important album to the band and the fact it achieved such success in the market only strengthens this connection. I think it will be hard to now listen to the record ever again quite the same. Gone will be the casualness an oft listened to record often becomes. That says a lot for this film I'd say.

I idolized these musicians as a teenager, and decades later it's nice to see that these guys are indeed bright and sensitive people. We get a good feel for what they went through when Syd Barrett became mentally ill and what happened when he visited Abbey Road Studios 7 years later. The film also gives us insight into how they struggled to link the songs thematically; we learn how a few rifts from Gilmour's imagination inspired the others to finish composing the tracks; and we even get an interpretation of Wish You Were Here's lyrics. Every interview feels unscripted. When the sound manager walks into the studio, I think he really is walking in there for the fist time in a while.

As a big fan of Pink Floyd as soon as I saw the release I was excited; I just finished watching it and I love it.

What you will find here is:

Recent new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and some material from Richard Wright before he past and some pictures and archive footage of the Great Syd Barret.

They talk about each song , what it means to them and how it was created ; also Brian Humphries (sound engineer of Wish you were Here) take us through the recording process and Storm Thorgerson talks about the cover and some of the art work.

The band talks about the emotional moment in which Syd appear on Abbey road and at first they didn't recognize him and there's some acoustic playing and singing by Roger and Dave in their interviews.

For the fans it will a nice experience. I'm Happy :=).

Honestly, I wanted to watch this one for long time but finally I had a chance to watch it last week just because one of those tracks named 'Have a Cigar' which is my favorite track on this album that I've already knew nearly at the time.

All in all, the explanation about its film are worth watching and at the end of film, I've cried, seriously.

Like spoken liner notes; the estranged musicians behind one of classic rock's best groups sit down to chat about the moods, conflicts and sounds that went into one of their seminal albums. Less technical than the preceding Making of The Dark Side of the Moon, it's more invested in uncovering the messages and meanings behind each track than the efforts that went into producing the finished sound. It still spends some time unraveling the aural onion skin behind an enormous mixing board, but Waters, Gilmour and company are caught in a more reflective, philosophical mood that delves into the recurring themes of the album, rather than the motions they were making with their hands. As usual, the band is anything but level-headed, but beyond their superficial egotism lies a dense, intellectual shared nature with plenty of wisdom and substantial meaning to share. They're smart, deep guys, but god are they in love with themselves. Nevertheless, it's bittersweet commentary on a bittersweet record, which speaks volumes (both directly and indirectly) about where the band had been and the dark clouds that were already forming on their horizon.