Who is Harry Nilsson Documentary marks a monumental time in music

Director John Scheinfeld is no stranger to making fantastic documentaries that humanize famous people.  When he released ‘The US vs John Lennon’ in 2006, he opened the floodgates of reality on a very powerful person in the music world.  In his most recent release ‘Who is Harry Nilsson (and why is everybody talkin’ about him)’ Scheinfeld again dispels the iconic myth built around this frightened, talented man who affected hefty peers, and generations to come for over 30 years in the music scene.

John has been making documentary films for 11 years.  The first to hit  the theaters was The US vs John Lennon.  John branched out in his previous documentary called  “We Believe” which is based on the fans love affair for the Chicago Cubs.  It is not without Rock n Roll however, as John talked Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen into lending thier songs to the film.   

 John explains how his connection with Nilsson began  “I first came across Harry’s work in college as a radio disc jockey.  I went through the cabinet and I just got hooked on the music.  Then flash ahead many years, I met his attorney, Lee Black, who’s also the Executive Producer of the film, he asked me if I would be interested in doing his story.  I went off and researched {Harry} and decided his was a story that needed to be told.”

This film shows Harry Nilsson as a talented artist with a tortured soul.  “It’s important for me to tell the truth.  I wanted to speak to people who were there, whether Yoko Ono, Eric Idle, Robin Williams, Terry Gilliam, Mickey Dolenz, and others, because it is first person accounts.  I think what you also get from that is great emotion.  What struck me most was that these people really loved him.  They loved him for everything he was.  We didn’t shy away from talking about the dark side.  We talk about the substance abuse.  I’m proud of the way we handled that.”

Getting such heavy hitters to speak openly about Harry was one of John’s easier feats.  “I think because Harry wasn’t over exposed, and people weren’t coming to them all the time about him, it wasn’t a struggle.  They really loved him and wanted to talk about him.”

Harry’s best friend was the only one that had issues discussing him on film “The one person we weren’t able to get was Ringo.  He and his people were helpful in so many ways.  They gave us photos and the long lost ‘Son of Drac’ film.  What it came down to is that it was just too emotional for him.  He doesn’t like to speak about John, George, or Harry in public because it’s too emotional for him.  We respected that.”  With all of the imagery of Ringo, he was in the film without being there completely.

Harry’s family wasn’t bothered by speaking honestly as John explains that Una, Harry’s widow, said ‘please just don’t do that, [repeat] the stories in the press that aren’t true.’  John has run across Rock Journalists crossing facts “there is one Rock writer that seems to confuse a time when John put a Kotex on his head.  He claims Harry was there and blends it into the Smothers Brothers story.  Apparently John did put a Kotex on his head, but it wasn’t when the writer said, it was a different time, and Harry wasn’t there.”

John put a story in the film and went straight to the source “We told the Troubadour story by May Pang, and Van Dyke Parks, all of whom were there that night.  It’s not the most flattering for John or Harry, but it’s a very honest portrait of who these guys are doing this time in their lives.”

Making this documentary had its challenges “Anybody can shoot cool footage and do special effects.  It’s more difficult to tell a compelling story that moves people.  I love the Beatles, Lennon, McCartney, and Harry too.  I asked why he stopped making his great art, where it came from, and who he is as a man.  One of the challenges of the film was that I made a doc on a guy who had never performed live.  So I added little moments of moving the camera around these still images of him.  You usually see these Rock docs and it’s of all live footage.  I used the camera to create the movement which then became a stylistic part of {my filmmaking}.”

To shape the film, they had help from an unlikely source “We didn’t want to use a narrator and Una was so great letting us rummage through her garage and such.  We ended up finding 3 hours worth of cassette tapes in which Harry had started to record his memories that were going to be his autobiography.  He started it 3 years before his death.  Here he is talking about when he first met the Beatles and how he felt about it, and other milestones in his life.  This was God sent.  We had the deceased subject telling us about his life which made it far more emotional film.”

The music throughout Harry's career was used in an innovative manner “I was looking to use the music throughout the film in a very special way.  There are pieces of 61 songs in this film.   What I was looking to do was to use the lyrics to advance the story, express what Harry was feeling, or comment on what we just saw or are about to see.  I didn’t want to hire a composer to score the film, so Sony, very generously, allowed me 26 master tapes of Harry’s recordings.  We stripped the lead vocals off the music and used the [it] in the background with no lyrics.  With listening to this you realize how well produced it was by Rick Gerard, Richard Perry, and John Lennon, and Harry himself.  You also realize the diversity of his style.  There were all kinds of emotional flavors of music to match the visuals.”

John had a difficult time wrapping up the film on a somber note.  “There was a different ending on the film for a long time.  It was cut to Harry’s beautiful song ‘Remember” and it just wasn’t Harry.  He made you smile and laugh.  While shaving one day, I remembered a story that Matt Hudson told, and I went back to the clip and it’s the ending that you’ve seen.  So you leave the story smiling and Harry is smiling himself.  On the DVD there is the previous ending, a lot of deleted, extended sequences, and a video of Harry covering Yoko Ono’s ‘Lonliness’ (1984).

“Who is Harry Nilsson’ can be purchased on http://www.amazon.com and is ranked as #1 Biography DVD.  A private screening will be shown at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles this Friday, November 19th, 2010.