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(officially spelled with a non-functional umlaut over the letter n and a dotless i) is a 1984 mock rockumentary directed by Rob Reiner and starring members of the fictional heavy-metal/hard rock band Spinal Tap. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard-rock and heavy-metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time.
Despite Reiner and the three main stars being credited as the writers of the film, much of it was ad libbed, and several dozen hours of footage were shot before Reiner edited it down to the released film.
Discussion
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Quotations
Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.
Concerning Boston, MA: It's not a big college town.
Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported.
I'm quite influenced by Mozart and Bach, so I like to think that this piece is more of a Mach really.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
That's not to say I haven't had my visionary moments. I've taken acid seventy five, seventy-six times.
Encyclopedia
(officially spelled with a non-functional umlaut over the letter n and a dotless i) is a 1984 mock rockumentary directed by Rob Reiner and starring members of the fictional heavy-metal/hard rock band Spinal Tap. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard-rock and heavy-metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time.
Despite Reiner and the three main stars being credited as the writers of the film, much of it was ad libbed, and several dozen hours of footage were shot before Reiner edited it down to the released film. A 4˝ hour bootleg version of the film exists and has been traded among fans and collectors for years.
The three core members of Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—are portrayed by the American actors Michael McKean and Harry Shearer and British American Christopher Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. Reiner appears as Marty DiBergi, the maker of the documentary. Other actors in the film are Tony Hendra as the group manager Ian Faith and June Chadwick as St. Hubbins' interfering girlfriend Jeanine. Actors Paul Shaffer, Fred Willard, Fran Drescher, Bruno Kirby, Howard Hesseman, Ed Begley, Jr., Patrick Macnee, Anjelica Huston, Dana Carvey and Billy Crystal all play supporting roles or make cameo appearances in the film. Scream queen starlet Brinke Stevens appears in an uncredited cameo as a groupie of the band in an early scene set in a hotel room.
Plot overview
The movie is shown in the style of a documentary filmed and directed by the fictional Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner). The documentary covers a United States concert tour for the fictional British rock group "Spinal Tap" to promote their new album Smell the Glove, but interjected with one-on-one interviews with the members of the group and footage of the group from previous points in their career.
The band was started by childhood friends David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) in the 1960s. Originally called "The Originals", then "The New Originals" to distinguish themselves from the existing group of the same name, they settled on the name "The Thamesmen", finding success with their skiffle/R&B hit, "Gimme Some Money". They changed their name again to "Spinal Tap" and enjoyed limited success with the flower power anthem, "Listen to the Flower People". Ultimately, the band found their long success in heavy metal and produced several albums prior to 1982 when the "Smell the Glove" tour occurred. The group was eventually joined by bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff), and a series of drummers, each of whom had mysteriously died under odd circumstances, including spontaneous combustion and a "bizarre gardening accident." DiBergi's interviews with St. Hubbins and Tufnel reveal that they are competent composers and musicians, but are lazy, dimwitted, and driven by greed. Tufnel, in showing his guitar collection to DiBergi, reveals an amplifier that has a volume knob that goes to eleven; when DiBergi asks, "Why not just make 10 louder and make that the top?" Tufnel replies, "These go to 11. You see - one louder". Tufnel later plays a somber classical music composition for DiBergi, which he says is called "Lick My Love Pump".
As the tour starts, concert appearances are repeatedly canceled due to low ticket sales. Tensions continue to rise when several major retailers refuse to sell Smell the Glove because of its sexist cover art and there is growing resentment shown towards the group's manager Ian Faith (Tony Hendra). Nigel becomes even more perturbed when St. Hubbins' girlfriend Jeanine (June Chadwick) — a manipulative yoga and astrology devotee — joins the group on tour and begins to participate in band meetings and attempts to influence their costumes and stage presentation. The band's label, Polymer Records, opts to release "Smell the Glove" with an entirely black cover without consulting the band. The album fails to draw crowds to autograph sessions with the band. In order to rekindle interest, Tufnel suggests staging a performance of "Stonehenge," an epic song that is traditionally accompanied in concert by a lavish stage show, and asks Ian to order a giant Stonehenge megalith, 18 feet high, to lower from the stage during that song of the band's set. However, due to Tufnel's mislabeling the sketch's dimensions, the resulting prop, seen for the first time by the group during a show, ends up only 18 inches high. Tufnel accuses Faith of mismanagement, and when St. Hubbins suggests Jeanine should co-manage the group, Faith quits in disgust. As the tour continues, rescheduled into smaller and smaller venues, including at an United States Air Force base and an amphitheater at an amusement park, Tufnel becomes upset and leaves the group in the middle of a show, forcing the remaining members to perform fusion-esque experimental music for lack of Tufnel's material.
At the last show of the tour, as the group considers venturing into a musical theater production on Jack the Ripper, Tufnel returns and informs them that while their American reception has died, the group is widely popular in Japan, and that Faith would like to arrange a new tour in that country. The group warms up to the idea, letting Tufnel back into the band for their final performance. Despite losing their drummer as he explodes on stage, Spinal Tap ends up enjoying great success on their Japanese tour.
Cast
Allusions
This is Spinal Tap alludes and parodies numerous rock bands.
- Spinal Tap's original band name, "The New Originals," may be an allusion to Led Zeppelin's original name, "The New Yardbirds."
- Stylistic changes in Spinal Tap's music mimic similar changes made by real bands: Early in their career, Pink Floyd was a psychedelic group until Syd Barrett's departure in 1968 and Roger Waters took over leadership; gearing them into the progressive rock sound that turned them into a phenomenon. Status Quo also started out as a psychedelic band before turning to the more traditional rock and roll sound that made them famous; Black Sabbath were originally the blues-based psychedelic band Earth before turning to their current heavy metal style; Genesis gradually changed from a progressive band into a pop group under Phil Collins once he became the band's leader following Peter Gabriel's exit in 1976; Sweet went from bubblegum pop to hard rock, while Queen did the opposite, starting out as a hard rock or metal band before softening their sound. Spinal Tap's career also closely tracks that of The Beatles until 1970; that is, they were originally a skiffle band founded by friends that went on to a more psychedelic sound.
- The band's constant loss of drummers is a nod towards several bands; John Bonham and Keith Moon had died years before, while Judas Priest were, for a variety of reasons, on their seventh drummer at the time of the film's release.
- The character of Jeanine is drawn from the public image of Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney and Nancy Spungen as inexperienced interlopers in their lovers' music careers.
- During the interlude highlighting Tufnel's "trademark" guitar solos, Tufnel first plays the guitar with his feet (parodying Jimi Hendrix's habit of playing his guitar with his teeth), and then with a violin (parodying Jimmy Page's use of a violin bow during his guitar solo on "Dazed and Confused").
- Derek Small's facial hair may be inspired by Motorhead bassist and frontman Lemmy Kilmister.
- The film's Stonehenge incident was inspired by a legendary blunder by Black Sabbath, during Ian Gillan's short stint as lead singer. The band requested a Stonehenge set piece which proved to be much larger than expected, forcing the band to rent a large concert hall simply to rehearse with the set. It was later discovered the plans for the set were labeled with dimensions specified in feet, but constructed as if in meters, thus making the set approximately 3 times larger than intended.
Reception
This Is Spinal Tap was only a modest success upon its initial release, suffering from, among other things, the failure of many viewers to understand that it was not a real documentary. Audience feedback cards from early screenings had comments such as "Too shaky. Get new cameraman." However, the film found greater success, and a cult following, after it was released on video.
In 2002, This Is Spinal Tap was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The movie cut a little too close to home for some musicians. Robert Plant, Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne all reported that, like Spinal Tap, they had become lost in confusing arena backstage hallways trying to make their way to the stage. Singer Tom Waits claimed he cried upon viewing it and Eddie Van Halen has said that when he first saw the film, everyone else in the room with him laughed as he failed to see the humor in the film. "Everything in that movie had happened to me," Van Halen said. When Dokken's George Lynch saw the movie he is said to have exclaimed, "That's us! How'd they make a movie about us?" On Pete Townshend's 1985 album White City: A Novel, the back cover describes Pete Fountain, a "famous guitarist" visiting the title location, as seen by an old childhood friend. When Pete mentions an incident where his drummer complained that "the caviar in their dressing room was the wrong viscosity - for throwing," the friend notes "This is Spinal Tap is obviously a true story."
Lars Ulrich told a press conference crowd that the Metallica/Guns N' Roses 1992 tour seemed "so Spinal Tap." This tour was in support of Metallica's own "black album." Shortly after the tour started, Metallica's James Hetfield suffered third degree burns on his arms after he stood too close to a pyrotechnic device.
According to a 1997 interview in Spin magazine with Aerosmith rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, "The first time Steven [Tyler] saw it he didn't see any humor in it".
It became a common insult for a pretentious band to be told they were funnier than Spinal Tap. As George Lynch put it, the more seriously a band took themselves, the more they resembled Spinal Tap. After seeing a 1986 performance by British metal band Venom, singer Henry Rollins compared them to Spinal Tap. In their respective Behind the Music episodes, Quiet Riot's Rudy Sarzo and Ratt's Robbin Crosby compared their own bands to Spinal Tap to some extent. For example; as a parallel to the "Shit Sandwich" incident, Quiet Riot's 4th album Condition Critical was given the two-word review of "Condition Terminal" in one magazine. In another example, the short-lived band GTR's eponymous debut LP was thus reviewed by Musician magazine: "SHT". R.E.M.'s Mike Mills described early tours as "very spinal tap," citing, among other things, the fact that they had indeed played at a US Air Force base.
American Film Institute recognition
DVD release
This Is Spinal Tap has been released twice on DVD.
The first release was a 1998 Criterion edition which used supplemental material from the 1994 Criterion laserdisc release. It included an audio commentary track with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer; a second audio commentary track with Rob Reiner, Karen Murphy, Robert Leighton and Kent Beyda; 79 minutes of deleted scenes; Spinal Tap: The Final Tour, the original twenty minute short they shot to pitch the film; a mock promo film, Cheese Rolling; a TV promo, Heavy Metal Memories; and a music video, Hell Hole. Sales of this edition were discontinued after only two years and the DVD has become a valuable collector's item. Much of this material had appeared on a 1994 CD-ROM by The Voyager Company that included the entire film in QuickTime format.
In 2000, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a special edition with new supplemental material. It has a new audio commentary track with Guest, McKean and Shearer performing in character throughout, commenting on the film entirely in their fictional alter-egos, and often disapproving of how the film presents them; 70 minutes of deleted scenes (some of which were not on the Criterion DVD); a new short, Catching Up with Marty DiBergi (where it is revealed that the members of Spinal Tap were very disappointed in DiBergi for making a "hatchet job" of their film); a shorter version of Cheese Rolling; the Heavy Metal Memories promo and six additional TV promos; music videos for Hell Hole, Gimme Some Money, Listen to the Flower People and Big Bottom; segments of Spinal Tap appearing on The Joe Franklin Show; and the theatrical trailer. The special features were produced by Automat Pictures. However, this version of the film was missing the subtitles that appear throughout the film (for example, introducing band members, other personnel, and location names) and did not include the commentaries from the Criterion edition.
A Blu-Ray release is in the works, and will include both commentaries from the Criterion disc, and the "in character" one from the Special Edition. It was slated for a January 20, 2009 release, but has been delayed indefinitely by the manufacturer. Amazon.com lists the new release date as July 14, 2009.
On IGN, This Is Spinal Tap was the only DVD - and seemingly the only thing reviewed on IGN - to get 11 out of 10, though this is a joke in reference to the memorable scene in the film.
Other musical parodies
Other rock/pop mockumentaries include:
Related works
- Break Like the Wind (1992), a music album that is the follow-up to Smell The Glove.
- A shorter made-for-TV sequel, The Return of Spinal Tap, was released in 1992 to promote Break Like the Wind. It consisted mostly of footage from an actual Spinal Tap concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
- This is Spinal Tap: The Official Companion (ISBN 0-7475-4218-X) was published in 2000. It featured a "Tap'istory", full transcript of the film (including out-takes), a discography, lyrics and an A-Z of the band.
See also
External links
- - fan site, includes the extensive guide
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