(A Superhero Named) Tony

Some kind of force. Some kind of Beatles. Some kind of wonderful. I’m not really sure I can accurately describe how I feel about the Beastie Boys. It’s sort of like their music — it’s more a feeling and the creative energy that propels it. You can only put so much into words before you have to drop rhymes, drop the abstract, drop everything and devolve into a tirade of “1, 2, oh my gawd.”

As for Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!, the words come easier, but the uneasy feeling of trying to define the Beastie Boys remains. The simplest fact is this: Under the usual pseudonym Nathanial Hörnblowér, Adam Yauch has put together a rocking concert film that easily rises above its democratic gimmick of giving 50 fans a camera to fire at will. The music is great, of course. The picture is interesting, if a little ADD-inducing. Song by song it evolves thematically with the breakdancing energy, unstoppable creativity and humor that one has come to expect from the Beastie Boys. It all makes for another notch in Hörnblowér’s belt that keeps him up there with another video director associated with the group, the estimable Spike Jonze.

Notice I say “keeps” him up there. Hörnblowér remains an unjustly unacknowledged presence in the history of music videos, either because of Yauch’s demure persona in interviews as he ages, or because the mainstream press dismisses Hörnblowér as a mere pseudonym (as if the band didn’t have them already). Yet what Awesome… does for Hörnblowér’s identity is immense, making him more of a collective entity and not just a wacky nom de plume. Hörnblowér is Yauch (and probably as much Ad-Rock and Mike D.). Hörnblowér is each of the 50 fan cameras. He is the rest of the professional camera crew. He is the security guards. He is the Garden’s concession vendors. He is you, me, Ben Stiller singing along in the crowd. We’re all Hörnblowér. Such is the beauty of Awesome…: collaboration. Three MC’s and one DJ. 50-some cameras and one movie. The director is not an individual, he is a unit, a commune.

Which goes in line with the film’s experiment of the 50-camera salute, the current democratization of digital video, my space, your space, putting it all into the hands of the consumer, the fans, etc. But, as evidenced in the occasional review, the experiment’s outcome does leave something to be desired. I suppose there are 50 people running around somewhere who would disagree, 50 who feel more connected to the finished product than I do. But my cynical editor side still wonders what the film might have been had it been shot entirely by fans — and, for that matter, edited by fans. That shaky shot from the nosebleeds looks kind of cool when cut in with HD footage taken by a pro on stage. And it looks extra cool when touched up and composited and cut up in such a way that could only bear the Beastie brand. Despite the great music, great picture and great nostalgia for NYC that I got from the film, the experiment only went halfway.

None of this is to say that the film isn’t still enjoyable, only that the promise of the gimmick left me wanting more. Perhaps it’s because we never really meet the 50 fans — with the exceptions of a couple voices (“Who wants to be on the DVD?”) and a quick flash in a restroom mirror — that the Hörnblowér renaissance is not fully realized.