This film tells (using modern day interviews and archival footage and sound tapes) the story of how in 1967, while his band The Beach Boys triumphantly toured abroad, Brian Wilson was trying to push the boundaries of conventional pop music with a new follow-up to the Beach Boys' cutting-edge mega-hit, Pet Sounds. The new album was to be called "SMiLE". SMiLE pushed the envelope both musically and lyrically, and was supposed to out-do the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper record. But Brian wasn't able to sell the project to his band-mates when they returned. The project was shelved and Wilson's well-documented decline into depression, drug abuse, recluseness, and obesity had begun. Thirty-odd years later, Wilson announced that in 2004, SMiLE would be performed live in its entirety in London. This film tells the story of a damaged but healing artist bringing his greatest work to light.
Acting
Wilson's fragile 2004 performances—a man resurrecting his own ghost.
Direction
Leaf weaves 1967 studio tapes into something almost unbearably intimate.
Sound
Hearing the original SMiLE fragments isolated will wreck you.
Director
David Leaf
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The original SMiLE sessions featured a fire in the studio—Brian kept recording while it burned.
This film dropped the same year as the completed SMiLE finally released, making it essentially a feature-length press kit that transcended its purpose.
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