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This Is Spinal Tap - The funniest musical film ever
Foto von: Spinal Tap Productions
Hardly any comedy succeeds in passing the test of time and being truly timeless. Set the stage for This Is Spinal Tap by Rob Reiner from 1984, a documentary-style musical comedy about a fictional British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap, who embark on a promo tour of the United States for their latest record entitled `Smell The Glove', stumbling from one disaster to the next.
In the film the documentary is referred to as a Rockumentary, a term that has found its place in popular culture along with some others. Technically, the film is a mockumentary, because the events and people are purely fictitious, but it is pretended as if everything was real; many people were duped by the band's leading actors and believed that they were indeed British, but they turned out to be US comedians, notably Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as the titular troupe.
Not only the film itself has become immortal in both cultural and musical memory, but above all the quotes, which have grown completely beyond and have been completely ingrained into popular culture.
In Germany, the film is also known as "Die Jungs von Spinal Tap", which translates to "The Boys from Spinal Tap", once again illustrating how inappropriate German translations of original titles are all too often.
This may be due to the fact that the film is much less well known in German-speaking countries. Director Rob Reiner begins the film as his alter ego, Martin "Marty" Di Bergi, and showcases his comedic flair.
The name will definitely ring a bell for movie buffs, because Reiner is responsible for such classics as “The Princess Bride” and the Stephen King coming - of - age film “Stand By Me”. Due to the director`s extraordinary filmography, it would be fatally short-sighted to assume that this is just a juvenile dud.
There is no end sparking one disrespectful comment after another in the 84-minute runtime of This Is Spinal Tap, but all the silliness and absurdity is directly affected by the very real lives of many touring musicians.
This Is Spinal Tap - A gag - superlative fireworks
The characters of McKeen, Guest and Shearer are the dazzling rock stars of the heavy metal band Spinal Tap, David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel on guitars and Derek Smalls with his mighty moustache on bass.
While David ticks the boxes of the clichéd frontman and rhythm guitarist, Nigel is the dim-witted but well-meaning lead guitarist, the wild looking but internally grounded Derek Smalls represents the band's intermediary when both guitarists clash with their pompous egos.
The drummers prefer to be left out completely, as the band went through 18 different drummers in their career, with all of them dying without exception, which is a reference to the painstaking process of recruiting drummers in the hard´n´heavy cosmos.
Such stories already exist within the world of rock´n´roll and heavy metal/punk because they simply have a certain potential for truth, especially in the music scene.
After all, conflicts of this magnitude often occur when people with extreme personalities are forced to spend prolonged periods of time crammed together. The familiar wink starts from the point where it is shown that David, Nigel and Derek do not seem to have the slightest clue of professional touring.
This lack of awareness is constantly being addressed throughout the film and provides aching stomachs throughout audiences, which partly makes even the actors themselves laugh in the finished film, since the majority of the dialogues were freely improvised. This makes This Is Spinal Tap stand out from other mockumentaries, because formats such as “The Office” have a semi-realistic lens, but the dialogues are mostly scripted, which makes Rob Reiner's film feel slightly more anti-Hollywood.
Just the fact that the idiotic band is from the UK and is lost in the US is a delicious reversal of the stereotype that US people are rather marginally educated and tactless, while British people seem to be the crowning achievement of civilization, at least in their eyes.
In fact, Ricky Gervais, head of the British series “The Office”, announced that This Is Spinal Tap was his primary inspiration for the series. This Is Spinal Tap transcends mere comedy and succeeded in influencing popular culture forever.
This Is Spinal Tap - All On 11!
In one of the film's funniest scenes (the film is a single, 84-minute-long gag, some might think), the adorably dopey Nigel introduces his personal guitar collection to the film crew.
In doing so, he reveals his personal amplifiers, which show the special feature of being able to adjust the controller a unit higher than 10, which is not found in this form and does not really make any difference.
This one phrase in This Is Spinal Tap, the original "turning it up to eleven," transcended the sphere of pure fiction and took its place in popular culture, even in the regular language.
Turning it up to 11 is an excessive, unnecessary limit breach, or the misconception of being able to produce more just because more content is apparently available, an everlasting problem within the world of art. The film turns the rock star clichés to eleven, but not without being reinforced by factual reports from various stars of rock history.
This Is Spinal Tap – Irreverent Parody of Rockstar Clichés
All in all, This Is Spinal Tap is a more than successful pseudo-documentary, which, through its anarchic sense of humour, the continuous improvisation of the main actors had people in stiches, and especially the content of factual tour anecdotes contain a deep core of truth.
On the one hand, the question can be examined as to which real band inspired the boys of Spinal Tap, and according to the filmmakers, it is the British Heavy Metal formation “Saxon”, who were once complaining loudly about the conditions of a hotel in a hilarious manner, whilst being witnessed by the creative trio behind Spinal Tap.
This encounter in the lobby and the typical laconic British undertone during the conversation with the staff inspired McKeen, Guest, and Shearer to create an extravagantly inflated British band that would become a star in the popular culture firmament over time.
This was hard to see when the film was released, because, like many other works, This Is Spinal Tap only became the cult phenomenon it is today years later; At the time of the release, the boys from Spinal Tap were anything but a hit.
No one less than rock´n´roll icon Lemmy Kilmister of “Motörhead” fame himself tells in his autobiography “White Line Fever” about the gigantic respect he feels towards all the people involved in This Is Spinal Tap, because according to him, hardly any feature film comes close to the degree of authenticity that is presented here.
In particular, the small sequence in which Spinal Tap seems to get lost hopelessly in the maze of the backstage area and irreversibly circle around is highlighted.
The music in the film was indeed composed and performed by the main actors, nowadays the three gentlemen still dress up like their cult figures and perform at charity events.
If that is not enough incentive for the quality of the film, then it should be remembered that a sequel with all original Tap members is scheduled for 2024. Long live Spinal Tap!
mukken.com – Portal to the world of music
Did you like this feature from the “Books & Movies” section and are you interested in learning more about the seemingly endless world of music? Then mukken.com is exactly the right address for you! Here you will find numerous articles on musicians, bands, instrument handling, vocal coaching and much more! A broad and constantly expanding editorial team works every day on new informative and interesting articles to satisfy the hunger of music-loving people. Feel free to check out the article on Studio 666, the hilarious horror comedy starring the Foo Fighters if you want to learn more about music films, or the feature on Bo Burnham: Inside, a revealing Netflix music special about the frightening past few years. mukken - because music brings people together.
Originally published on February 9, 2023, updated on February 9, 2023
Main topic: Bo Burnham: Inside - A musical comedy documentary for our confused times
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