The Jewel in the Crown: Unauthorized

"Morrissey: The Jewel in the Crown" is a 108 minute unauthorized documentary on Morrissey's solo career, from "Viva Hate", album by album to "You Are The Quarry". It was a little rough in places, but it was a pretty interesting documentary.Being an unauthorized documentary, there is no music from Morrissey or his former band the Smiths played in the film. Instead, there's some Smiths sound-a-like music that fills interludes here and there. It doesn't overwhelm the background, and isn't played all the time, which is all right. The interviews are pretty interesting, including producer Stephen Street, guitarist Craig Gannon, "Kill Uncle's" Mark Nevin, and a few music journalists and biographers. They discuss the making of albums and singles, various gigs, Morrissey's infamous "Union Jack" incident of 1992, and bandmember politics and legal woes. The discussions about that particular topic was a side to the British music scene, and of Britain itself, that I had never really thought about before. It's quite nasty in a subdued sort of way, all the bickering over who wrote what with Morrissey and how someone else is bending the truth. It's really hard to say who is, that's the strange thing.It was curious the way the musicians talked about their encounters with Morrissey, too. Through their eyes, he is a man who is rather shy, whose prone to going red with embarassment when something unexpected happens. He's an unconventional songwriter, who doesn't do quite what his co-writers plan or would expect him to do. Morrissey's still really mysterious though, to me anyway. It's like there's always stuff that doesn't quite add up, and he's gone and hidden the calculators. There's an interview with Morrissey as well, taken from a British TV show around the time of promotion "You are the Quarry", but it's fairly short and at the end of the film. In it, he's pretty open and "mellow" (to quote Mark Nevin).Special features include a Morrissey quiz and a discography, which is a little inaccurate ("You are the Quarry" is written in it as "I Am the Quarry", for instance).It's worth a look for Morrissey fans, just keep in mind it is unauthorized. On that level, it's really pretty decent, great selection of interviews, even if they ramble on in that British way every now and then.

I love Morrissey, obviously - or i wouldn't have watched this, but as a documentary this one is a sleeper.. Details from Morrissey's career are nice, but the reliance on the twitter-twatter of past producers and alienated bandsmen leaves us feeling that we are not seeing too much of the man Morrissey really is.. I do like the descriptions of how he lives his life - rearanging furniture to confuse guests and so forth - but with no actual footage or music from Morrissey - or at least interviews with him - we feel like we are learning nothing...

Firstly, there are no Smiths/Morrissey songs or music in this documentary. Afterall, it is an unauthorized piece.Secondly, expect lots of interviews. Can be quite boring at times, ie when Stephen Street and Vini Reilly going back and forth arguing who has the rights to the songs blah blah blah.Thirdly, this documentary does cover up til You Are the Quarry. But only in the last 10 mins of the show.Overall, it's an interesting piece but could be better.

Great DVD

I was really looking forward to receiving this DVD, especially as the release date had been put back several times. However my joy was shortlived. This DVD is merely a collection of interviews with a handful of people loosely related withMorrissey's music. There was no interviewing of Morrissey's current band let alone the great man himself and to crown it all, there wasn't a single note of Morrissey's music played anywhere.If you buy this expecting something along the lines of 'The Inportance of Being Morrissey', then you will be very disappointed.This DVD will soon end up in the 'bargain bucket', where it truly belongs.