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Young @ Heart
Directed by Stephen Walker
Starring: Bob Cilman and the members of the Young@Heart Chorus
Running time: 107 minutes
Rated: PG (a bit of salty talk, grave themes)
A fave of Jan: "It's about a group of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who sing in a
chorus, but they don't sing Yes, We Have No Bananas; they sing I Got You (I Feel
Good), Stayin' Alive, I Want to Be Sedated, and other goodies. We get to know and love
the individual singers and don't want to let them go. Click on Stayin' Alive for the
You-Tube video."
The premise of Young@Heart sounds much too cute to tolerate. A documentary about
a choir of old-timers bashing out rock songs like the Ramones' I Wanna Be Sedated
and Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees? Good for a quick ironic horselaugh on YouTube,
maybe, and then it's time to move on.
The ragged triumph of Stephen Walker's film is that it convinces us to stick around as
the proceedings deepen into profundity. To sing the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I
Go when you're in your 90s changes the very DNA of the song - you're no longer
addressing a girlfriend but God. Coldplay's Fix You becomes a stark plea when
accompanied by the rhythmic puff of an oxygen pump.
Yet Young@Heart is a delight, too - a paean to harnessing punk's energy to rage and
dancing against the dying of the light. Walker trains his camera on the Young@Heart
Chorus of Northampton, an organization started by choir director Bob Cilman in 1982
as a way to give the members of an elderly housing project something to do.
Somewhere along the way the puckish Cilman started introducing rock classics to
the mix. "After Do Wah Diddy Diddy, things weren't the same," he deadpans.
The movie follows the preparations for a 2006-07 tour of New England, the West
Coast, and Ireland. (The choir has already been to the rest of Europe and Australia.)
Cilman introduces the new material: Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia, the Talking Heads'
Life During Wartime, Allen Toussaint's Yes We Can Can, and, for 84-year-old Dora
Morrow and 76-year-old Stan Goldman, a duet on James Brown's I Got You (I Feel
Good). The choir's expressions as they listen to Schizophrenia for the first time say it
all: shock, confusion, and a lust for challenge.
Cilman has his hands full, especially with I Feel Good: Morrow has the rhythm but can't
remember the lyrics, and Goldman remembers the lyrics but can't get the rhythm.
There are pockets of rebellion, as in high school. The movie fans out into the choir
members' lives with friendly curiosity, nosing in as the men and women struggle and
gripe and tease each other. The difficulties of aging - let alone aging with grace - are
never glossed. The humor is scraped clean of self-pity.
Young@Heart is sloppily made at times and it comes close to wearing out its
welcome, but you can't blame Walker for not wanting to let his subjects go. And as
the movie progresses, a viewer begins to understand why: These people are literally
singing for their lives.
A great deal of suspense is wrung out of whether one choir member will make it out
of the hospital in time for a performance, and it's giving little away to say that some of
the singers don't make it to the end credits. Suddenly the trite lyrics of Fix You ache
with portent: "When you try your best, but you don't succeed/ When you get what you
want, but not what you need/ When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep/ Stuck in
reverse."
Against every mournful moment in the film is a scornful laugh; the scenes with Eileen
Hall, at 91 the oldest member of the choir but in spirit one of the youngest, burn with
energy. Late in the film, after the choir has heard some tragic news, they perform
Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark in the yard of a minimum-security prison.
The scene boomerangs beyond metaphor and back into real life; singers and
convicts alike seem to access what's happening at every level. In Young@Heart, the
prison is old age, and every song's a jailbreak. By Ty Burr, Boston Globe Staff / April
18, 2008
Directed by Stephen Walker
Starring: Bob Cilman and the members of the Young@Heart Chorus
Running time: 107 minutes
Rated: PG (a bit of salty talk, grave themes)
A fave of Jan: "It's about a group of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who sing in a
chorus, but they don't sing Yes, We Have No Bananas; they sing I Got You (I Feel
Good), Stayin' Alive, I Want to Be Sedated, and other goodies. We get to know and love
the individual singers and don't want to let them go. Click on Stayin' Alive for the
You-Tube video."
The premise of Young@Heart sounds much too cute to tolerate. A documentary about
a choir of old-timers bashing out rock songs like the Ramones' I Wanna Be Sedated
and Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees? Good for a quick ironic horselaugh on YouTube,
maybe, and then it's time to move on.
The ragged triumph of Stephen Walker's film is that it convinces us to stick around as
the proceedings deepen into profundity. To sing the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I
Go when you're in your 90s changes the very DNA of the song - you're no longer
addressing a girlfriend but God. Coldplay's Fix You becomes a stark plea when
accompanied by the rhythmic puff of an oxygen pump.
Yet Young@Heart is a delight, too - a paean to harnessing punk's energy to rage and
dancing against the dying of the light. Walker trains his camera on the Young@Heart
Chorus of Northampton, an organization started by choir director Bob Cilman in 1982
as a way to give the members of an elderly housing project something to do.
Somewhere along the way the puckish Cilman started introducing rock classics to
the mix. "After Do Wah Diddy Diddy, things weren't the same," he deadpans.
The movie follows the preparations for a 2006-07 tour of New England, the West
Coast, and Ireland. (The choir has already been to the rest of Europe and Australia.)
Cilman introduces the new material: Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia, the Talking Heads'
Life During Wartime, Allen Toussaint's Yes We Can Can, and, for 84-year-old Dora
Morrow and 76-year-old Stan Goldman, a duet on James Brown's I Got You (I Feel
Good). The choir's expressions as they listen to Schizophrenia for the first time say it
all: shock, confusion, and a lust for challenge.
Cilman has his hands full, especially with I Feel Good: Morrow has the rhythm but can't
remember the lyrics, and Goldman remembers the lyrics but can't get the rhythm.
There are pockets of rebellion, as in high school. The movie fans out into the choir
members' lives with friendly curiosity, nosing in as the men and women struggle and
gripe and tease each other. The difficulties of aging - let alone aging with grace - are
never glossed. The humor is scraped clean of self-pity.
Young@Heart is sloppily made at times and it comes close to wearing out its
welcome, but you can't blame Walker for not wanting to let his subjects go. And as
the movie progresses, a viewer begins to understand why: These people are literally
singing for their lives.
A great deal of suspense is wrung out of whether one choir member will make it out
of the hospital in time for a performance, and it's giving little away to say that some of
the singers don't make it to the end credits. Suddenly the trite lyrics of Fix You ache
with portent: "When you try your best, but you don't succeed/ When you get what you
want, but not what you need/ When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep/ Stuck in
reverse."
Against every mournful moment in the film is a scornful laugh; the scenes with Eileen
Hall, at 91 the oldest member of the choir but in spirit one of the youngest, burn with
energy. Late in the film, after the choir has heard some tragic news, they perform
Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark in the yard of a minimum-security prison.
The scene boomerangs beyond metaphor and back into real life; singers and
convicts alike seem to access what's happening at every level. In Young@Heart, the
prison is old age, and every song's a jailbreak. By Ty Burr, Boston Globe Staff / April
18, 2008
| 84-year-old Dora Morrow and 76-year-old Stan Goldmanbelt out a duet on James Brown's I Got You (I Feel Good). |