In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon

This is a great documentary and it gives a very nice insight on the way Paul Simon shapes his latest (last?) album. Along the way we see the story how Simon's career started with it's ups and downs. It is a great miss the film maker stops around the succes of Graceland (okay, we got a few minutes on the follow up album "Rhythm of th Saints" in the movie as well.

This film is missing out on the second half of Paul's career. The description of the movies mentions the six decades Paul Simon's career is spanning. Too bad the great works from the last 3 decades are not mentioned or talked about.

This makes that this film feels like incomplete. There is life after Graceland! Very much so. Too bad this was not included.

Basically this film is about "7 Psalms", Simon & Garfunkel and Graceland. Highlights in Paul Simon's career, but not doing right to the career itself.

Still a joy to watch and listen to!

A 2023 comprehensive & some might say exhaustive documentary (running 3 & 1/2 hours) on the musical career of one Paul Simon. Tracing his roots from Queens & his hit or miss early days in the industry, things started to click when he hooked up w/an old school chum, Art Garfunkel (heard via audio interviewers), who provided the perfect vocal accompaniment to his songwriting (something he remarks over & over again, he wrote all the songs). Soon enough, especially after the Graduate came out, the pair became the duo par excellence for the age but as the 70's encroached & Simon soon ventured into acting (appearing in Annie Hall) w/many appearances on Saturday Night Live (he became close friends w/producer Lorne Michaels so much so Michaels was his best man when he married Carrie Fisher) but after his 1st marriage dissolved & his one foray into starring (& co-writing) in a film named One Trick Pony failed to find an audience, he was in the doldrums which finally broke when he released his world music tinged Graceland in the 80's which proved to be immensely popular along w/his vaulted reunion w/Garfunkel for a free concert in Central Park, he managed to conquer the world again. W/his song lyrics & on camera musings sprinkled in w/his visual history, filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side/Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) follows Simon around his Texan studios which is occasionally frequented by his wife & fellow singer Edie Brickell as he talks out his process & we get an insight into this consummate songwriter & performer.

Great history of the first years of his and Garfunkel's lives and careers. Those albums and performances are in the pantheon of 60's musical creations. Way too much footage, though, of him noodling his new album. And isn't the guitar lick he channeled in a dream the same one from Anji 60 years ago?

But the episode ends with a completely unnecessary and cruel remark about his ex partner: After saying his five year friendship with him was his first great friendship with someone who got him, he then says Garfunkel is now someone he never wants to see again. At this point in their lives, was it really necessary to make such a cruel public rejection? I'm sure he had the clout to remove that even if it wasn't his choice to include it.

The documentary is almost faultless; its editing and concept make it one of the best documentaries I have watched. Paul's story is told and weaved within a contemporary narrative as he works on his new album, 7 Psalms. There are no talking heads, all the voice overs or narration is done with people that are introduced through archival footage and it is therefore seamless. The documentary ends with him and Edie (his wife) ,in his studio, singing a couple of verses of a song from his 7 Psalms album. This sets up a sense that he realizes that he may be reaching the end of his creative journey, and then it fades to the credits. But if you wait until just after the credits roll on episode 2, you are treated to a haunting version of Sound of Silence, recorded during a rehearsal. It is night, and he is singing to an empty hall, and in the distance people are walking along the footpath and just casually gazing towards the sound as they walk past. It is a slow and very moving and neatly provides a bookend to an amazing career as it was this song that launched his career all those years ago. The versions are worlds apart; his youthful version launched his career was a driving folk rock version with twanging guitars and drums, this version, matured and just reflecting where he is now.

I am a huge fan of Paul's and he has been part of my life since almost the beginning. I learnt to play the guitar by emulating his style and have memories of spending many, many hours trying to master songs like Kathy's Song, and this documentary is an is an absolute enjoyment from start to finish and tops everything off.

The historical overview of Simon and Garfunkel and their breakup is excellent. Less excellent is Paul Simon in his homemade Texas studio putting together his latest solo album.

So lets's talk about the Simon and Garfunkel history, then, where we learn some very insightful things. Paul Simon is an excellent songwriter and his songwriting during the 1960's was beautiful, mesmerizing and groundbreaking. It spoke to the generation that grew up in the NYC metropolitan area and were impacted by the major events of the 1960's including assassinations and an extremely unpopular war. For the most part this generation was Liberal, open minded socially, politically, musically. Anti-war, anti-racism, pro-women's rights, pro-culture in general. These were Simon and Garfunkel's people and they are the one's who showed up for the Simon and Garfunkel reunion in Central Park in 1981 in an extremely emotional outpouring of love. A love of a by gone time of open mindedness and culture that Simon and Garfunkel represent.

Simon's songwriting spoke to this cultured generation but he had vital help - the beautiful, angelic voice of Art Garfunkel which transformed Simon's songs from very good to the stratosphere of angelic beauty. And why these albums are all classics.

Simon needed Garfunkel and they never should have split up. What they created together was not just good songs but something far more - great art!

Why the split? It wasn't either musician it was a comic turned movie maker, Mike Nichols, who pushed Garfunkel into acting. A horribly bad, selfish move by Nichols who knew full well it would break up the pair. An unconscionable act of sabotage that destroyed great art. I can't watch any of Nichols movies because of this.