''Moby Doc'' is a 2021 American documentary film about the life and career of musician
Moby
Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...
. It was co-written by Moby and Rob Gordon Bralver, who also directed and produced the film. It was released theatrically by
Greenwich Entertainment
Greenwich Entertainment, founded in 2017, is an independent film distribution company specializing in distinctive, theatrical-quality narrative and documentary features. The company released Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s Academy Award-Wi ...
and on digital platforms on May 28, 2021, the same day as Moby's album ''
Reprise
In music, a reprise ( , ; from the verb 'to resume') is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the 18th century—was simply any repea ...
''.
Background
A previous incarnation of a documentary about Moby had been produced by another filmmaker, but Moby felt the film was "very plain" and rejected it. After being introduced to Moby and collaborating on several music video projects together, Bralver viewed a cut of that earlier film with Moby about a year after it had been abandoned, then suggested to rework it by deleting almost the entirety of the footage shot to date, and shooting all new content while approaching the documentary in a completely different and unconventional way, to which Moby agreed.
The original idea was to document Moby making an acoustic album, but the record never got finished. It was subsequently determined that the documentary would be a therapeutic, psychological portrait and biography of Moby's entire life, career, and animal rights activism.
Moby and Bralver set themselves two rules when making the film, which were to produce something honest and that was idiosyncratic and unlike other music documentaries they had seen. This was influenced by Moby having judged at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
and the
International Documentary Association
International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Filmm ...
, which made him realise that many documentaries "conform to the same basic chronological structure."
[ Moby was unaware on how difficult it was to make the film in terms of logistics and the bureaucratic challenges that were faced. Despite this, Moby felt "quite proud" of the finished product. Bralver has cited his main influences on the creative direction of the film to be "the music videos of ]Spike Jonze
Adam H. Spiegel (born October 22, 1969), known professionally as Spike Jonze, is an American filmmaker, actor, musician, and photographer. His work includes commercials, film, music videos, skateboard videos and television.
Jonze began his ca ...
and Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers ...
and Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings" — with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been ...
's '' The Diving Bell and the Butterfly''".[
]
Filming
The documentary includes footage filmed with an Alexa Classic, Red Epic, an 8K drone, Canon C100 & 5D cameras, and from a mobile phone. It also features videos taken from YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. Moby found that filling in gaps in the film's narrative was easily overcome by taking his Canon 5D camera into his backyard and filming, which cost nothing and allowed greater creative freedom.[ Bralver was able to locate rare archival footage of Moby, some of which the musician himself was unaware of its existence.][
]
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the documentary holds an approval rating of 50% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10.
References
External links
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{{Moby, state=collapsed
2021 documentary films
2021 films
Documentary films about electronic music and musicians
Moby
2020s English-language films