Genius, like celebrity, is an overused term.
It does not always mean a pleasant personality, indeed Picasso and Miles Davis might have been auteurs in their field, but were dysfunctional human beings.
Ginger Baker the drummer in Cream, Blind Faith and several other bands, is a genius.
He begins this documentary by breaking writer/director Jay Bulger’s nose with his walking stick.
As this documentary demonstrates, he redefined the skill of drumming, taking influences from both jazz and Africa (the latter meaning he had to flee Nigeria after his association with Fela Kuti).
In between, he wallowed in sex, drugs and rock and roll – sometimes, all three at the same time.
The promoter of Cream’s gig in Madison Square Gardens mentions his rider (a case of beer, two black prostitutes and a white limo). The latter wasn’t available.
He’s enjoyed three marriages; leaving his first wife for his daughter’s boyfriend’s sister, and a staple diet of heroin, LSD and speed.
But hey, he did drive across The Sahara in a Land Rover.
Bulger profiled Baker for Rolling Stone, and takes a similar long form approach in this documentary.
At the beginning, Baker is on his farm in South Africa, breeding polo ponies (“Horses and dogs never let you down”).
His contemporaries speak highly of him, but he doesn’t return the favour.
Keith Moon and John Bonham are good drummers, but the latter “couldn’t swing a sack of shit”.
Bulger takes a kinetic approach to the documentary form, by swooping and jumping through photos.
Whereas the pivotal moments in Baker’s life are portrayed in grainy, almost East European animation.
In these, Baker is a slugger, a slave drummer, a Centurion – the latter seems apposite, leaving emotional and literal chaos wherever he went.
Come the end of this documentary, Baker is behind the drum stool, not by choice but by necessity.
His estranged son Kofi mentions he blew the £5m he earned for Cream’s reunion on polo ponies. Broken, alone, but unbowed; a truly horrible, but truly talented human being.
However, this is a vibrant, original approach to both the documentary form and its subject.
In its dispassionate approach it’s similar to Ondi Timoner’s Dig which portrayed the rise and fall of both The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
No-one came out of that one unscathed.
Beware Of Mr Baker is an astonishing Bacon-like portrait of a very English devil; a dysfunctional human being he may be, but an auteur all the same.
The film is on a limited release and will be out on DVD July 22.
Image courtesy of Insurgent Media via YouTube, with thanks
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