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How ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ Became One of the Modern Era’s Great Rock Docs: Lots of Cooperation, Zero Interference and a Director Who Cared Most About the Music
Director Bernard MacMahon talks about the making of 'Becoming Led Zeppelin,' which became an unexpected big-screen hit before moving to home video.
The Sony Classics release “ Becoming Led Zeppelin,” though, has defied expectations of what a modern rock doc can do in cinemas, on its way to finding the favor of fans as a home video hit, too. So when we finished our “American Epic” films [an acclaimed three-part documentary about recording techniques for rural artists in the early 20th century], I spoke to my producer, Allison, who came to really kind of drive it. You’ll start to spot how, when they’re playing in Europe and these kids are putting their fingers in their ears and no one gets what they’re doing, they’re singing “Communication Breakdown.” When they’re flying out to New York to try and get their record deal, they’re singing “Your Time is Gonna Come.” When they’re traveling across America, and recording the second album, for a significant portion of that you are hearing “Ramble On.” And when Rolling Stone and some of the media have completely lambasted them, and they decide to kind of double down in the face of that, they’re playing “Dazed and Confused.” So the songs are used the way that they do in the ‘40s with musicals like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” where it was compiled with different Irving Berlin songs from different musicals and they just used the lyrics to create a new narrative.
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