Billy Joel is, obviously, no Ozzy Osbourne. Though he’s experienced brushes with death, mammoth success and crushing lows, the Long Island singer’s trajectory isn’t as obviously cinematic as other rock ’n’ rollers’ bumpy ride down the road of mega-celebrity.
While the Prince Of Darkness’ fascinating life has been thus far under-explored on-screen beyond that reality TV show, Joel is the subject of a lavish new two-part documentary that amounts to five hours on the man who wrote ‘Uptown Girl’. Yes, that’s right – five hours. This kind of immersive treatment can be absolutely fascinating, as was proved by 2015’s four-hour Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All, which was effectively a detailed history of 20th Century America told through the prism of Old Blue Eyes’ rise, fall and rise again.
Filmed before its subject’s recent health struggles, Billy Joel: And So It Goes works to a tighter frame than the Frank doc. Directors Jessica Levin and Susan Lacy have painted a loving portrait of the Piano Man, exploring his hardscrabble ascent from working-class roots to head-spinning fame via detailed breakdowns of every studio album he’s ever released. Yup, all 13 of them. It’s as exhausting as it sounds though the cast list is impressive – Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and even Nas turn up to pay tribute.
Essentially, it’s a standard point-and-shoot rock doc with talking heads punctuating footage of Joel in his soft-rock ‘70s prime and onwards. The show’s single greatest moment is probably the opening shot of the first episode, which looks like it’s been created by Martin Scorsese. “When I was young, I worked on an oyster boat,” Joel tells us via voiceover in his chewy accent. “I would look up at this mansion on the hill, wondering what it would take to live in a house like that.” The camera then swoops gracefully past the gigantic mansion he now calls home. The boy did good, but how did he get here?
It doesn’t really take five hours to answer this question, given the star’s obvious borderline genius for melody and a steely work ethic that belies his ‘aw shucks’ guy-next-door persona. Still, there are interesting detours along the way and Billy Joel’s candour is commendable, if a little selective. A desire to impress his father, a classically trained pianist who showed his son little love, is gradually cited as the reason for Billy’s relentless drive. Equally fascinating is the second episode’s analysis of his Jewish grandfather’s escape from Nazi Germany to the United States. The Nazis, Joel reflects ruefully, “wiped out my family”.
The film’s aforementioned candour is a blessing and a curse. Joel discusses his two pre-fame suicide attempts with pitiless clarity and brands himself a “three-time loser” for being thrice divorced – yet all this honestly only draws attention to what’s been left out. If songwriting is so instinctive for him, as is suggested, why did he quit writing pop songs in 1993? His struggles with alcohol addiction are referenced frequently, but only in curiously euphemistic terms; it’s never clear exactly how much this impacted his nearly three-year hiatus from playing live until his glorious stage comeback in 2012.
Much of And So It Goes is like ambient telly, with yet another album breakdown washing over you. Still, mega-fans will obviously lap it up and you’ll undoubtedly be reaching for that battered copy of ‘The Stranger’ when the credits (eventually) roll.
‘Billy Joel: And So It Goes’ airs August 2 on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW