Abstract
Christopher Guest’s fake documentaries about music are marketed as entertainment but they also raise serious questions about music history and the problem of authenticity. Working as a collaborative writer, director and actor in This is Spinal Tap (1984), Waiting for Guffman (1996) and A Mighty Wind (2003), Guest has recast the “discourses of sobriety” as deadpan comedy. In the process, he challenges the traditional fact/fiction dichotomy and claims to authenticity. With attention to folk, rock and community theater genres, this article focuses on Guest’s treatment of received narratives about music-making that are preoccupied by a quest for origins and a sense of home. The reality of such narratives is depicted as compromised, while performance, sometimes animated by a camp sensibility, offers a way forward.
Highlights
The idea was, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do a movie where people got this right for a change?”
4 this article makes no claim to being exhaustive, it will, after a brief introduction to Guest and his methods, consider several signature aspects of his “musical trilogy.”. These include skepticism about the idea of authenticity,5 about how the story of music is often dubiously cast in relation to a sense of “home.” This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind depict very different musical worlds, but they are united in their fascination with retelling the past, challenging received ideas and narratives, and reshaping aesthetic boundaries
10 This is Spinal Tap9 pretends to be a documentary about the American tour of a British rock band promoting their latest album, “Smell the Glove.”
Summary
ISSN: 2274-2042 Publisher Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur. Electronic reference Charles Holdefer, « From “Discourses of Sobriety” to Deadpan Comedy: Christopher Guest’s Musical Trilogy », Angles [Online], 9 | 2019, Online since 01 November 2019, connection on 06 September 2020. This text was automatically generated on 6 September 2020. Angles est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. From “Discourses of Sobriety” to Deadpan Comedy: Christopher Guest’s Musical. The idea was, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do a movie where people got this right for a change?”. Left to right: https://happybday.to/Christopher-Guest?page=2; https://www.tvguide.com/ celebrities/christopher-guest/144775/; http://exclaim.ca/film/article/mighty_wind-christopher_guest
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