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YoIf you didn’t grow up with a worn copy of Sounds of Silencebookend, either Bridge over turbulent waters among the LPs stacked near the family hi-fi, your parents or grandparents probably did it. From the mid to late 1960s, the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel were so ubiquitous that you couldn’t escape them even if you wanted to. Their songs, not overtly political, were about everyday things like friendship, impending breakups, the simple pleasures of a day at the zoo, and their opaline harmonies had a soothing, bright quality. Pablo Simon and Art Garfunkel, who had been friends and musical compatriots since their childhood in Queens, parted ways, somewhat acrimoniously, in 1970; It took a long time for fans to recover. While Garfunkel pursued acting, Simon continued as a singer-songwriter, and the many ups and downs (and occasional ups and downs) of his career form the arc of Alex GibneyThe insightful and comprehensive two-part documentary series. In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. (The docuseries airs in two parts on MGM+, March 17 and March 24.)
Gibney, known for documents such as Enron: the smartest guys in the room and Taxi to the Dark Side, weaves together Simon’s past and present into an elegant whole. He spends time with Simon in the cozy little studio adjacent to his home in Wimberley, Texas, a facility with the kind of luxurious, rustic cowboy-style quality that only a lot of money can buy, while Simon, now 82, prepares his fifteenth solo. album, Seven Psalms, launched last May. After the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, Simon had great success, although he had some obstacles along the way. He took risks on projects that didn’t work: the 80s one trick pony, a film in which he played a fictional version of himself flopped, and his 1983 studio album hearts and bones, Written and recorded around the time of his intensely brief marriage to Carrie Fisher, it disappointed fans hoping for a Simon & Garfunkel reunion album. He two had reconciled in 1981 for a spectacular concert in Central Park, although, as the documentary makes clear, Simon still couldn’t get over his former partner’s annoying habits and perceived egocentrism, so he decided to break free once again.
Still, in the context of such a vast and varied career, those small dips seem inconsequential. Gibney frames Simon’s past, beginning with charming black-and-white publicity photographs of teenage Paul and Art taken around the time of his first hit, “Hey Schoolgirl,” in 1957, with the realities of his present. His marriage to fsinger and songwriter Edie Brickell It seems to be of ardent closeness. (Brickell tells a wonderful story about performing her hit “What I Am” on Saturday night live, in 1988, and fails to speak when he sees Simon standing near one of the monitors. Gibney illustrates the moment with a clip (we can see the lightning). But while Simon writes and records Seven Psalms, Circa 2021, he struggles with hearing loss and is frank about how much this distresses him. He can write with the help of small Bose speakers connected to his computer, but he has trouble figuring out how to sing. He runs through a lyric into the microphone and stops short after hitting a clunker: “I’ll have to grab that note another day.”
Although above all, In restless dreams sounds with joy. Simon still revels in the mystery of where the songs come from, and we also learn a few tricks about how they become dazzling, finished artifacts. (The drum echoes that appear in Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” were recorded by engineer Roy Halee near an elevator shaft.) Gibney includes select clips of Simon appearing on talk shows in the 1970s, a thoughtful, elfin presence with a dry air. sense of humor. (At one point he says that he loves listening to his songs in an elevator or, better yet, having a stranger hum him to him on the street.) Look for his sly smile as he sits next to George Harrison, performing “Here Comes the Sun” on Saturday night live in 1976. Even for someone important like Paul Simon, playing with a Beatle is clearly a very What a thing.
Best of all is the footage of the Simon’s era 1986 Graceland, showing him talking and laughing with musicians in Johannesburg, although he also listens closely and learns from them. The album was controversial at the time: Simon had broken the cultural boycott against South Africa, imposed in response to apartheid, and was also accused of cultural appropriation. But Gibney reframes that controversy by including old clips from exiled musicians Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, who toured with Simon after the album’s release. For these artists, unwelcome in their home country, the opportunity to perform with Simon and bring their music to new and larger audiences constituted, if nothing else, a spiritual homecoming. As Wynton Marsalis, one of Simon’s collaborators in Seven Psalms, As he says, his work represents “not the reduction of feeling, but the expansion of feeling.” That’s how a kid from Queens can reach out to a bigger world and give it back to us, heard again.
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