MVD Entertainment Group has set Friday, June 4, as the Blu-ray debut date for documentary filmmaker John Scheinfeld's Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) … a DVD selection will also be available on that date.
John Scheinfeld began making bio-documentaries on a regular basis in 2000, these included such entries as The Unknown Peter Sellers, Dean Martin, That’s Amore, Vintage Sinatra, Bob Hope the Road to Laughter, The Divine Bette Midler and The U.S. vs John Lennon. The documentary on John Lennon opened at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 and followed theatrically later in the year … it did very well for a documentary during its theatrical run.
It was this same year, and the work put in on The U.S. vs John Lennon that brought Scheinfeld to put together a documentary on The Beatles’ “favorite” American recording artist, Harry Nilsson. It was pulled together sometime in 2005 and brought to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February of 2006 … and then it, that particular version of it, was pulled.
It turns out, the film was not finished. At least, the version screened then, and this presentation, which surfaced four years later, are very different; a much-more complete telling of the life and times of recording artist and tunesmith, Harry Nilsson. More interviews, more work … and a far better result.
For fans, if you are looking for a trip down music memory lane, with performances of “Everybody’s Talkin’,” “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City,” “Without You,” “Coconut” and more, that’s not what you will get with Scheinfeld’s film. This isn’t a critical review of Nilsson’s work, peppered with live performances, rather this is a look at the artist’s life from his early days to his death in 1994.
Using vintage material of Nilsson, plus interviews with the people who were part of Nilsson’s circle of friends and colleagues, we get a look at the life of an artist who produced a number of very memorable — and catchy — songs, for himself and others, but in the end, he remained something of a mystery.
Bonus features include a treasure-trove of additional interviews (this would have been an epic film if Scheinfeld had used everything he had assembled in the final cut), deleted scenes and the music video titled “Loneliness,” which is introduced by Yoko Ono.
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