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Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
Documentary, Music
Catherine Bainbridge has some setting-the-record-straight to do in her broad documentary overview of Native American musicians’ influence on distinctively American popular music forms like rock and roll, jazz and the blues—which doesn’t mean she has a particularly elegant way of doing it. The film covers a broad range of subjects, from lesser-known people of Native descent who were genre trainblazers (guitarist Link Wray, vocalist Mildred Bailey, blues songwriter Charley Patton) to “bet you didn’t know they were Indians” bigger names (Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Robertson, the Black Eyed Peas’ Taboo). There’s no particular logic to the way these profiles are organized, bouncing across the decades as talking heads narrate Wikipedia entries with a soundtrack. There’s much more compelling material in the broader looks at how Native musical and vocal styles, particularly in the South, blended with African-American culture to influence the birth of the blues, and it’s certainly valuable to address the historical erasure of Native peoples from the American story. But as well-meaning a Rumble might be, it starts to feel like a feature length version of Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song”: cultural pride in the form of name-dropping.
Official Site: www.kinolorber.com/film/rumble
Director: Catherine Bainbridge
Writer: Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana
Producer: Catherine Bainbridge, Jake Kent, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick, Claire Mackinnon, Lisa Roth, Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Tim Johnson, Linda Ludwick, Jan Rofekamp, Stevie Salas and Ernest Webb
Cast: Buffy Sainte-Marie, John Trudell, Martin Scorsese, Tony Bennett, Steven Tyler, Iggy Pop, Taj Mahal and Adam Beach
Director: Catherine Bainbridge
Writer: Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana
Producer: Catherine Bainbridge, Jake Kent, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick, Claire Mackinnon, Lisa Roth, Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Tim Johnson, Linda Ludwick, Jan Rofekamp, Stevie Salas and Ernest Webb
Cast: Buffy Sainte-Marie, John Trudell, Martin Scorsese, Tony Bennett, Steven Tyler, Iggy Pop, Taj Mahal and Adam Beach
