Interview: Color Me Obsessed director Gorman Bechard
Theres something missing from Color Me Obsessed, director Gorman Bechards new documentary about Minneapolis music legends The Replacements: the band itself. Bechard purposefully avoided putting Paul Westerberg or his bandmates in the film directlyno interviews, no music, no concert footage, no album covers. But what seems at first to be a self-defeating approach is perhaps uniquely suited to The Replacements, a band so infamously disinterested in its own fame that its members once tried to steal their master tapes and throw them in a river, and flipped the bird to the whole idea of MTV by making a music video consisting entirely of a speaker playing Bastards Of Young for three and a half minutes. As its title implies, Color Me Obsessed is about the bands fans as much as it is about the band itself. By not directly including The Replacements in the film, its subject broadens beyond simple biography into an exploration of what it means to be a fan, and to have your life changed by a song. Obsessed tells The Replacements story, from formation to early 90s flameout, through the words of fans, critics, and contemporaries from the Minnesota music scene, including HüDüant Hart and Greg Norton, The Hold Steadys Craig Finn, Kids In The Halls Dave Foley, and Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy. The A.V. Club talked with Bechard in advance of Color Me Obsesseds Minneapolis debut, 7 p.m. May 4 at the Womans Club, as part of Sound Unseen.
Originally published May 2, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.
Tags: A.V. Club
film, interview, Minnesota, Minnesota music, music, Sound Unseen, The Replacements | Christopher Bahn | 
May 2, 2011 4:36 pm | 
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Independent cinema is a bigger growth industry than you might think. A decade ago, there were maybe a hundred film festivals worldwide showcasing foreign films, documentaries, and low-budget fare. Now that numbers about a thousand. Here in Minnesota, the reigning king is the U Film Societys international festival, one of the largest yearly draws of any arts event in the state. But theres apparently plenty of room for growth here, too. Two of the newest film fests, Sound Unseen and Central Standard, screen this month, and they ought to be on the radar of any self-respecting fan of indie cinema.
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