Truer words were never spoken.
On the website for the film The Music Never Stopped there’s a quote by its director Jim Kohlberg. “Music is such an integral character…I wasn’t going to do the film unless we could get the music.”
Based on an essay by Dr. Oliver Sacks, M.D. ( Awakenings ) called “The Last Hippie,” where a brain-damaged patient is helped through musical therapy pioneered by Dr. Concetta Tomaino (www.imnf.org), the film chronicles the relationship between generations that are torn apart during the tumultuous changes of the late 1960s and is bridged when the father wants to reconnect with his son after a long-neglected brain tumor changes the young man’s life.
Without the ability to create new memories the character of Gabriel in the film “awakens” to the sounds of the music he grew up with and mean the most to him – the Beatles, Bob Dylan and especially the Grateful Dead. The use of the music by those artists, and others, in The Music Never Stopped not only gives the film a degree of authenticity but reminds moviegoers of one of its messages, that music has the ability to heal as much as it does to incite rebellion.
Starring J.K. Simmons ( Burn After Reading ) as the father, Lou Taylor Pucci as the son, Cara Seymour ( The Savages ) as the mother and Julia Ormond ( Legends of the Fall ) as Dr. Diane Daly, it screened to a much positive response at the Sundance Film Festival last January. Showing additional support for the film, Bob Weir performed a solo acoustic concert as part of The Music Never Stopped events where he was joined by Mickey Hart. Hart, who has been involved with musical therapy in the past, has taken part with his longtime friend Sacks and Kohlberg in Q&A sessions following additional screenings.
After opening in select theaters earlier in the month, “The Music Never Stopped” expands to 18 markets on April 1. For locations and more on the film, visit www.themusicneverstopped-movie.com.
My discussion with Kohlberg includes bringing a tragic story of brain damage into an uplifting tale for moviegoers, the relationship of music to the drama and how artists such as the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and the Tulips fit into this.
The conversation begins with a brief discussion of my sports viewing habits and my comment that cheering for sports teams and dealing with the heartbreak of losses can prepare someone for the rejection of the Hollywood film industry. Kohlberg laughs and says, “Truer words were never spoken.”
JPG: Now, do you live and base your operations in the Hollywood area?
JK: No, I live in Northern Cal. So, I’m right outside of Palo Alto.
JPG: Why live there rather than closer to the base of the film industry?
JK: I think I’d probably go crazy. (slight laugh) It’s not far if I need to get down there. It’s just a shuttle down. I like the climate up here. The variety up here…L.A. is such a company town, you can’t get away from it. So, this has an artistic community, a business community and a great city. I love San Francisco…and great food. So, there’s just a lot of different influences rather than full-time Hollywood, which is incredibly preoccupied with the moment’s appearances rather than the reality of getting any work done.
JPG: In regards to your location, did that encourage you towards picking this story?
JK: No, not really in the sense that what I really reacted to was the family story, the really well-written script. The music was a huge part of it, but it wasn’t just the great Dead songs plus Dylan. Really, it’s mostly for me about the music and how it’s so necessary for a kid and how the music splits them apart in the sixties but brings them back together in the eighties. I don’t know if you’ve watched the film…
JPG: Yes I did.
JK: What did you think?
JPG: I liked it but I must admit that I read the Oliver Sacks essay right before I watched your film, and I was removed to some degree because I was comparing the two and noticing what portions were used or what was changed. In that sense do you feel that the screenwriters did the right thing in changing the situation because it probably would have been a much sadder story?
JK: I do. I do. They did a couple of really smart things. They, obviously, created characters and a family story that was both sad but also has some redemptive qualities and some humor in it. They did a really smart thing not focusing on the years between him leaving home and having the brain tumor. There was a fair amount of discussion about his years with the Hare Krishnas and him being blind and things like that. And I think that would have been just too much. I think they made the right choices.
It’s too bad in a way that you didn’t see the movie first and then read the story because you could have seen that while in fact the movie goes much deeper and creates its own characters and storyline, it does take a lot of the medical facts.
JPG: I recognized those aspects of it as well as particular lines that were used in the film from the essay such as…Gabriel rhyming about “babies with rabies.” I’m sure I’ll watch it again with other people, and at that point I’ll take it as a film where it won’t be so much like homework.
JK: The other thing is that audiences react unbelievably well to the film.
JPG: Oh, I still cried at the end.
JK: Oh, okay.
JPG: So, even as hard-hearted as I was, I still recognized it for what it was. So, you did you job. Don’t worry.
JK: Oh, good. That’s nice to hear.
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