“Shut Up & Sing” offers moments of fascination out of proportion to the subject matter. A documentary about the Dixie Chicks? What rough edges would the polished country-bluegrass band allow on screen?
“Behind the music,” was there any “there” there?
Plenty, it turns out, because of five smart and entertaining women. There are the three Chicks, of course: musically accomplished, business savvy, dedicated to their families and drop-dead gorgeous.
And then there are Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, the filmmakers who jumped at the chance to tell the Chicks’ story after lead singer Natalie Maines made her now-infamous crack about President George W. Bush while touring in Europe. Kopple and Peck quietly win the confidence of their subjects, then set their cameras up unobtrusively, capturing what feels like real life – minus the boring parts.
The most memorable scene in the engrossing “Shut Up & Sing” is not a warm-and-fuzzy family moment, or a political middle finger from Maines, of which there are a few. It’s the chilling minute when tickets go on sale for the Chicks’ American concert tour, after country radio stations had vilified them for their allegedly unpatriotic remark.
We should have known the music business has come to this, but we didn’t. Promoters sit in front of a computer screen in New York as sales open simultaneously around the nation. Within seconds, they know if the next six months will be a boom or a bust: Forget Memphis. Nashville’s looking bad. The whole South is hopeless. Dump the second Atlanta concert, and add one in Toronto.
The fate of the Chicks is sealed with a few cold keystrokes.
Just how did a few wing-nuts spread their mantra that “If you’re supporting the Dixie Chicks, you’re supporting communism”? The cowardice of corporate radio helped. Ditto for journalists who promoted the boycott while claiming to cover it objectively. Kopple and Peck wisely revive the other-worldly image of a steamroller crushing Dixie Chicks CDs, as a small rabble cheers.
Maines and her bandmates, sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, were tuning up a new tour in Europe in 2003 when the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq. Protesters swarmed the streets of European cities, and Maines felt compelled to say something.
Caught on film by Chicks employees taping for an Internet site, Maines says into the microphone, “We’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Maines gives a little look after she says it, as if she knows she’s about to get in some trouble. She had no idea.
Within days, corporate radio chains controlling hundreds of the most popular stations around the nation had banned any songs by the Chicks, who are the most popular female recording act in history.
(Another highlight/lowlight of “Shut Up & Sing” is a congressional hearing where Sen. John McCain gets the chairman of Cumulus radio stations to define the word “ban.”)
Bill O’Reilly is bellowing that the Chicks “deserve to be slapped around.”
Kopple and Peck watched the controversy unfold, and persuaded the Chicks to participate in a full documentary. The band handed over all the footage previously shot for the Internet, and Kopple and Peck started taking new film of their own.
Kopple (who won Oscars for “Harlan County, USA” and “American Dream”) and Peck could have stuck to politics. No shortage of material there. Instead, they took their cameras into the three Chicks” homes to reveal them in all dimensions. The publicly silent Robison and Maguire are not mere backdrops for lead singer Maines. They support her in quite moving ways, amid the death threats and other hatred. They are also fierce in their desire to remain a popular band.
“This is more than just a job,” Maguire says. “It’s a lifestyle. I need it.”
The filmmakers give us a good taste of what took the Chicks to such great heights – their debut “Wide Open Spaces” sold 12 million copies. Their seven Grammys include three albums of the year; before becoming redneck scapegoats, they sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. “Shut Up & Sing” includes choice versions of “Travelin” Soldier,” “Lullaby” and “Long Time Gone.”.
Weep not for the Chicks. They are rich and talented.
The question that lingers after “Shut Up & Sing” is where the concept of dissent now stands. One election may have altered the present balance, but neither side has offered to mothball its steamrollers.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at mbooth@denverpost.com.
“Shut Up & Sing” | *** 1/2 RATING
R for profanity|1 hour, 33 minutes|DOCUMENTARY|Directed by Cecelia Peck and Barbara Kopple; featuring interviews with and performances by the Dixie Chicks: Natalie Maines, Emily Robison and Martie McGuire| Opens today at area theaters.
