Watching the doc is at times an awkward affair. There’s a fair bit of home movie footage, of Rufus, sister Martha, mother Kate and father Loudon. Although revealing, you get the feeling this sort of stuff should be reserved for family members or close friends like another of the talking heads, Tracy McLeod.

Elton John, alarmingly looking like he’s about to engage in a session of Tantric sex with his partner David Furnish as the interview takes place in what appears to be a candle-lit bedroom, tediously talks about his role in Wainwright's recovery from a breakdown caused by an addiction to crystal meth. Yes, it’s the Robbie Williams story retold. Uncle Elt, a former addict, to the rescue again.

EJ is more interesting on Rufus´ song structure. The one-time Reg Dwight reveals what it felt like to discover Wainwright for the first time: "The songs, the chord progressions, were like nothing I’d heard. It wasn’t just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It wasn’t like that. It was more classical."

Sting says more or less the same thing, but less eloquently. Producers Pierre Marchand and Marius De Vries, a former Blow Monkeys keyboard player no less, are far better, offering a valuable insight into the recording process of a Wainwright album. Rufus himself praises Marchand for his work on ‘Poses’, especially as Wainwright was drugged up most of the time, comparing the French-Canadian to a man "trying to get all the deckchairs in before the torrential rains were going to come."

There are some live recordings of Rufus in concert too. The show in Cambridge is particularly entertaining. Wainwright looks like he’s dressed for the occasion too, rainbow-coloured vertically striped trousers, green-and-white horizontally striped t-shirt, brown jacket, and scarf worn in the college tradition. 

When he’s playing his trusty Yamaha piano or strumming away on guitar, Rufus can come across as so focused as to appear autistic. Between songs, though, he gives good patter. At the Cambridge gig, for example, he raises a titter with his introduction to ‘Go On Or Go Ahead´: "The next song is...I wrote it about crystal meth and...which is obviously a huge problem here. These streets…these mean streets of Cambridge. I know they’re crack houses. They may look pretty."

As well as extra concert footage, the DVD differs from the television documentary in that it includes videos for every single Wainwright has ever released. The pick is the one for ‘April Fools’ with Martha, who’s also seen backing her brother in concert, playing a geisha girl. The only downside is that the documentary doesn’t really encourage a repeat visit, an accusation you can never level at a Rufus Wainwright CD.

(3½/5)

 

Release Date: 02 May 2005

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