''Storefront Hitchcock'' is a 1998 American
concert film
A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian.
Early history
The ...
featuring
Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the ...
and directed by
Jonathan Demme. It was conceived as "a document not a documentary",
and the performance was shot in New York City in December 1996, in an abandoned used clothing store on 14th street.
Over the course of the performance, simple props and set pieces are varied, such as a bare lightbulb and a tomato sculpture, and occasionally a passerby on the street glances in.
Jonathan Demme met Hitchcock after Demme attended a live show, and offered to direct a live performance video for a song, which was then revised to be a full concert.
Demme was inspired to film in the storefront setting by a Hungarian theatre group,
Squat Theatre
Squat Theatre (1977–1991) was a Hungarian theatre company from Budapest which left Hungary for Paris and then New York City, where they performed experimental theatre. History
Living in Paris in 1977, a friend of the company, Tamas Szentjoby, s ...
, who operated in New York City in the 70s and 80s and typically performed in a storefront against a large plate glass window facing the street.
Demme subsequently cast Hitchcock in small roles in two other films, ''
The Manchurian Candidate
''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.
Th ...
'' and ''
Rachel Getting Married
''Rachel Getting Married'' is a 2008 American drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, and Debra Winger. The film premiered at the 65th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 200 ...
'', and used one of his songs in ''
The Truth About Charlie''.
Setlist
All songs composed by Robyn Hitchcock.
#"Devil's Radio"
#"1974"
#"Filthy Bird"
#"Let's Go Thundering"
#"I'm Only You"
#"Glass Hotel"
#"I Something You"
#"The Yip! Song"
#"I Am Not Me"
#"You and Oblivion"
#"Airscape"
#"Freeze"
#"Alright Yeah"
#"No, I Don't Remember Guildford"
Personnel
* Robyn Hitchcock - vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica
*
Tim Keegan
Tim Keegan is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. Vocalist and principal songwriter with Departure Lounge since 1999, Keegan has recorded and performed with various bands and as a solo artist. He has worked with a number of noted mu ...
- guitar, vocals
*
Deni Bonet
Deni Bonet is a US-born singer-songwriter, electric violinist, and multi-instrumentalist. She began her professional career in the house band of National Public Radio’s ''Mountain Stage'' radio show. She left to pursue a solo career and also ...
- violin
Release
The film premiered at the
SXSW Film Festival
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
on March 19, 1998.
It was funded by
Orion Pictures just before it declared bankruptcy and was bought by
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
, and did not receive the hoped-for distribution or promotion in the United States.
In Hitchcock's words, "when MGM kind of unzipped their stomachs to see what they'd swallowed, they pulled out Orion, and they cut open Orion's stomach. And inside Orion's stomach was wriggling Storefront Hitchcock, a little kind of minuscule million-dollar project that MGM wasn't particularly interested in."
In fact in its original US release it only played in one theater in New York City,
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater at 209 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Kare ...
, for one week starting on November 18, 1998.
The film was released on DVD in 2000 by
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
.
Reception
Dennis Harvey in ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' said that Hitchcock's "rich, supple voice shines, and his seemingly impromptu between-song patter suggests a pleasing form of mild insanity" also saying that "the songs are the real attraction here, and they provide a good overview of a large personal catalog."
Stephen Holden in
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
wrote that the film "captures the sensibility of this smart, quirky folk-rocker in the most appealing possible light",
while Scott Tobias in The A.V. Club wrote that "Demme's relaxed, ego-free direction is a reminder that the quirky humanist behind Melvin And Howard and Married To The Mob hasn't lost his touch", and "his clean, elegant compositions enhance the intimacy of the performance".
However Douglas Wolk of the Village Voice described it as a "simple but nicely presented document of a middling Hitchcock solo performance", complaining that "the set list dips generously into his lamest recent material".
Soundtrack
References
{{Jonathan Demme
1998 films
1998 documentary films
American documentary films
American rock music films
Concert films
Films directed by Jonathan Demme
1990s English-language films
1990s American films