By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Craig Zobel
Starring: Kene Holliday | Pat Healy | Rebecca Mader
Country: united_states
Year: 2007
Running time: 106
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826547/
Chris says: “The title is actually the name of a small record label in the film that bills itself as a ‘talent search company.’ Salesmen are hired as ‘record producers’ and trained to audition aspiring musicians whom they encourage to sign up, make a CD and become a star. It also sounds too good to be true, especially when the musicians themselves must put up 30% of the production and distribution costs.
“We follow two freshly minted producers: Martin (Pat Healy), who’s nebbish, agreeable, young and white (sort of resembling a Gen-X Bob Newhart), and Clarence (Kene Holiday), who’s black, older, and far more gregarious. The label sends them to second-tier cities like Birmingham, Alabama to audition hopeful amateurs; naturally, they have to do this in their own hotel room and often without any financial support from the label. The film’s hook is that the people auditioning are, with at least two exceptions, the genuine articles—they’re actual musicians who responded to a facetious ad placed by the filmmakers. It’s a novel idea that plays out beautifully: the actors get to flex their very capable improvisational skills, while we get to explore the parallels between the scams perpetrated within the film and those by the filmmakers.
“Pairing up Healy and Holiday seems like an obvious ploy for yin-yang interaction, but both actors successfully enliven their characters. Holiday, in particular, evolves from a sitcom-rote figure to a thunderous, near-tragic entity: his climactic speech to Healy is highly affecting, far-reaching and unsentimental in how it pauses to consider the world beyond the film, not to mention the necessity of some scams. The film drags when the focus shifts to Healy’s relationship with his artist girlfriend, but GREAT WORLD OF SOUND is mostly enjoyable and more than merely clever: an abiding sense of melancholy favored over cynicism gives it its soul. 4 cats
“GREAT WORLD OF SOUND screened at the Provincetown International Film Festival”
Michael says: “GREAT WORLD OF SOUND was a bit of a sleeper hit at April Independent Film Festival of Boston, with rave reviews from Gerry Peary and Beth Curran, so I was very pleased that I got the opportunity to catch it at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Filmmaker Craig Zobel, who has worked on all of David Gordon Green’s feature films, has come up with something pretty inventive for his second feature following the indie film SURFACING in 2002. GREAT WORLD OF SOUND is the name of a record company that hires a fleet of ‘talent scouts’ to seek out musicians for recording deals. What makes The Great World of Sound different from traditional record companies is that it asks the musicians it signs to put up 30% of the recording and marketing costs when they sign as a show of good faith that they won’t back out of the deal. Martin and Clarence are new hires and quickly become the company’s star scouts. They are sent to various cities across the South auditioning prospective clients with the express charge of signing them all. If you’re thinking this sounds suspiciously like a con game you’ve caught on a lot quicker than the prospective talent and the scouts themselves. When Martin finally realizes what is going on, he does his best to extricate himself from the company but his change of heart comes a little too late.
“What makes GREAT WORLD OF SOUND so unique is the way Zobel shot it. Except for two acts, the musicians who audition for the record company didn’t know they were in a fiction film. They thought they were truly auditioning for a record label. Does that make Zobel as much of a con artist as his characters? While he doesn’t take their money, there is something deceitful about the process, but it does add an element of reality that makes for some compelling filmmaking. Pat Healy (UNDERTOW) is a good choice to play Martin, a young man struggling to find his way who thinks he’s tapped into something exciting, before realizing that in fact, he’s involved in something immoral. But it’s Kene Holliday as Clarence, a man who has known hard times, living on the streets who shines, with his earnest sales pitches and his heartbreaking denial of reality. Also notable is television actress Rebecca Mader as Martin’s girlfriend Pam, supportive yet frustrated as Martin starts to keep things from her as he finds himself somewhere he doesn’t want to be.
“If there is a flaw to Zobel’s film it is the sheer number of auditions we must endure. While many are funny and some are moving, the sheer number is slightly overwhelming. I’m sure it was difficult to select what to cut, considering they are all pretty fascinating, but the film does start to drag as the number of auditions progress. 3 ½ cats
“GREAT WORLD OF SOUND screened at the Provincetown International Film Festival”