It sounds like a horrifying glimpse into indie stand-up comedy: Bill Callahan made a tour documentary-- and it's showing at a silent movie theater! But that's what happened when filmmaker Hanly Banks' Apocalypse: A Tour Documentary had its world premiere last week at L.A.'s Cinefamily, followed by a brief, three-song performance from Callahan himself. The 46-year-old singer-songwriter's hardly a recluse, but he's not exactly talkative. He's somewhat notorious for being one of the most difficult interviews going; even though his masterful 2011 album Apocalypse was accompanied by a relative media blitz, it mostly consisted of leaving writers fascinated by their own inability to get the guy to cop to much of anything.
Shot over two weeks on the road in 2011, Apocalypse begins with what appears to be Callahan acknowledging and perhaps even puncturing his image as a Boss Level interview subject: He reads excerpts from one of his profiles, repeating "The New York Times says…" at the beginning of each one in a way that implies he takes every thing written about him as some sort of backhanded compliment or baseless accusation. It's funny... if you know his rep.
But if you're looking for Apocalypse to do the job music journalists couldn't-- i.e., deliver a startling expose on Callahan's creative process and personal life-- it's all downhill for you after those first couple of minutes. Frankly, touring doesn't seem particularly harsh or taxing for the singer. Callahan's minimalist band setup recalls his lyric from "One Fine Morning"-- "Just me and the skeleton crew/ We're gonna ride out in a country kind of silence"-- and the hotels he sleeps in make his level of indie stardom seem like a pretty decent gig.
Apocalypse doesn't try to tell you how to feel about Bill Callahan, which makes sense since Bill Callahan doesn't do that either.
There are no meltdowns over demo tapes, no existential crises set to late night talk shows. There are several moments that flirt with some kind of breakthrough-- upon seeing a baby goat reenacting the cover of Pearl Jam's Vs., the van pulls over so that Callahan can extricate it from its predicament. The gesture is so common, so decent, that it can't possibly make some sort of larger statement about Bill Callahan, Human Being. Likewise, the biggest smile Callahan flashes is when he slips on a freshly pressed, tailored suit before a show.
Those are your big reveals, since Apocalypse doesn't probe Callahan much, more or less standing in a sort of quiet awe of its subject. And credit Banks for leaving it at that. And credit's also due to the director for withstanding a defiantly clueless Q&A after the screening. (Sample questions: "Did you fall in love with Bill?" and, "Why did you call it Apocalypse?") The film eventually becomes less of a day-in-the-life tour doc and more of a beautifully-shot collection of live performances from a guy you really need to see in order to truly appreciate. Just watching his face-- the way a squint, an arched eyebrow, or a brief view askance colors every single lyric. It drives home the point that Mike Powell made in his review of Apocalypse: "It's like Callahan is alive in the music while it's being documented."
Callahan speaks in disarmingly straightforward language that still sounds cryptic as hell: "I like traveling… especially in a vehicle."
Then again, you don't have to work particularly hard for Callahan's work to seem filmic: the clip of "Drover" cuts to the same vast rural stretches you've imagined in your head as Callahan's narrator stares off into the distance at this "wild country… that breaks a strong mind." The performance of "America!" is overlain by a Fox broadcast of a baseball game that looks almost ethereal-- the effect is quietly humorous and ambivalent when it could easily get heavy-handed. Unfortunately, a multi-cultural "We are America" montage during "Riding for the Feeling" makes it feel more like a Chevrolet commercial than befitting of the song's staggering open-ended question about the effectiveness of artistic expression.
Otherwise, Apocalypse doesn't try to tell you how to feel about Bill Callahan, which makes sense since Bill Callahan doesn't do that either. In a very protracted manner, Callahan hints at his motivations, no longer writing about "the self" but rather trying to find his connection to society as a whole. But for the most part, Callahan speaks in disarmingly straightforward language that nonetheless sounds cryptic as hell: "I like traveling… especially in a vehicle." "On stage, I think that's the realest me." "When I started making music at 20… time stopped." He says he makes records so he can figure out in retrospect how he really felt at the time. But perhaps the most profound statement inspired by the warm and open Apocalypse came from an audience member completely unfamiliar with Bill Callahan's three-decade-deep discography: "I can't tell if he's an optimist."