Ron Howard has always been an interesting director. His projects range anywhere from How the Grinch Stole Christmas to A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code. Coming off his successful project Rush last year, I was curious as to what he’d direct next. To my surprise it was Made in America, a documentary about Jay Z and his Made in America music festival.
With Howard’s track record (filled with both spectacular hits and misses), I was worried about how this doc would turn out. Would we get an in-depth look at Jay Z and his career? Would we get the bare minimum to please music fans? Well, the answer is more in the middle.
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Made in America
Director: Ron Howard
Rating: NR
Release Date: July 11, 2014 (Theatrically)/July 22, 2014 (VOD and DVD)
Made in America documents Jay Z and his organization of the Budweiser Made in America music festival. Through interviews with artists like Janelle Monae, Tyler, The Creator, The Hives, Rita Ora, Eddie Vedder, and Jay Z himself, the doc hopes to better understand and frame the true meaning behind the “American Dream” while celebrating music and what it does to better everyone’s lives.
The most interesting aspect of Made in America is how it’s filmed. In an intelligent move, the grassroots like camerawork (using only one or two handheld cameras) clicks with the film’s thematic resonance. The phrase (and its mentality) “pulled up by the bootstraps” is used quite often through the interviews in order to emphasize that each artist worked through tough times to find their current success. This wouldn’t have worked so well had the production quality of the film been any higher. Hilariously enough, with not a lot of care put into the filming process, a few of the walls these artists have are broken down. For example in an interview with Tyler, The Creator, you can clearly see a boom mic in the background for a few seconds. Rather than clean up that scene in the final cut, it’s left in so the interview has more character. The interviews are full of little imperfect touches like these.
While that imperfectness might not make for a visually compelling documentary, the relaxed nature of the film makes it easier to sit back and enjoy rather than absorb every bit of information. To emphasize this, the interviews are cut in between bits of the festival’s performances. Capturing the overall essence of the festival, these bits are fun, aren’t too impeding, and the cuts to Jay Z hard at work backstage are a nice change of pace. Unfortunately, this also means there’s a lack of solid structure. It becomes needlessly difficult to discern the underlying message of the documentary as it jumps around and loses focus quite a bit. The doc can take you anywhere from an interview with D’Angelo to Run (of Run DMC) cooking eggs to Jay Z taking a tour of his childhood home. As Jay Z is the only one who gets a hefty amount of screentime, he’s the only one we learn anything about. We get a brief refreshing bit of Janelle Monae’s past, but everyone else gets two or three minutes and are then gone forever. While that might be acceptable for this doc’s demographic, it’s not going to be a draw for those who aren’t so in tune with the music industry.
But what is here is entertaining to listen to. Howard has a few regular folks with unique perspectives (basically the antithesis of the “Rags to Riches” success stories presented by the artists) interspersed, and they’re so engaging, I wish we would’ve got more of them. One in particular is a young roadie who’s barely making ends meet, and has to live in a house with many other people in order to make rent. He gets two brief scenes, and his story remains inconclusive. I suppose that may be a criticism of the faulty optimism of the American Dream, but it completely clashes with the vibe of the rest of the film. It just begs the question of why bringing up the idea in the first place is necessary when it isn’t used for anything of substance.
But Made in America accomplishes what it set out to do. An entertaining pop documentary with surface level information. That’s not necessarily a bad thing here as the format of the film will appease fans of these artists, but it’s extremely alienating for those outside of the bubble.
Made in America is not going to bring any new fans, but it’s a fun party for those willing to attend.