Quincy *** ½ / *****
Directed by: Alan Hicks and Rashida
Jones.
Written by: Alan Hicks and Rashida
Jones.
It’s
usually a red flag when a family member decides to make a documentary about
their famous relative. What happens in those cases is usually a sanitized
documentary, in which their beloved family member is pretty much painted as a
saint, that ignores any sort of darkness or complicating factors in that
person’s life. That is not the case with Quincy – the new documentary about the
life and work of Quincy Jones, co-directed by his daughter, Rashida Jones. The
movie is, admittedly, largely a glowing portrait of Quincy Jones – but then
again, he is a figure who has earned a largely glowing portrait to be made
about him. But the film doesn’t shy away from Jones’ imperfections – his
multiple marriages, which usually ended because of either his womanizing or his
work-alcoholic tendencies. The film flashes back and forth in time – from him
as he is now, an 80-something year old man, who still works too hard, and only
gave up drinking a little while ago because of a health scare, and a quick look
back at his extraordinary life and career. The result is a good documentary –
one whose biggest sin is that it tries to cover too much ground in just over
two hours.
Quincy
largely lets the man himself tell his own story – he narrates the documentary
about his life. The film starts with a rough childhood on the streets of
Chicago, where violence was always a threat, and in the 1930s, was still segregated
(Jones says he didn’t see a white person until he was 11). His mother suffered
from mental illness, and came and went from his life – it was painful when she
wasn’t there, scary when she was. He discovered music at a young age, and
during his teenage years, he was already performing in clubs.
From
there, the movie skims through Jones’ time as a hit making producer in the
1960s, working with artists like Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, to becoming one
of the first African Americans to do music scores for films, through his own
albums, and on and on – everything from working closely with Michael Jackson on
thriller, to being a driving force in trying to stop the violence between
rappers in the 1990s. The amount of work that Jones has done is astonishing.
It
also details his various marriages and children – three marriages, seven
children (not all from those marriages) – and how everything always started so
well in those marriages, before they eventually come apart – mainly because he
just wasn’t there enough. Still, what the movie makes clear is that Jones
always loved his kids, always had a good relationship with them – and still
does to this day. We, of course, see him with Rashida more than his other
children – she is, after all, filming much of this for the documentary – and
their relationship is sweet.
I
do think the movie falls into the trap that many documentaries about people
like Jones falls into – and that is, it wants to cover so much ground, it ends
up skimming the surface more than it should. If you’re a Jones’ diehard, I
wonder how much of what you’ll see in this documentary would actually count as
new information to you. If you’re not, are you going to watch at all?
I
hope the answer to that question is yes. The movie is largely devoid of talking
heads, but there are numerous conversations between Jones and current musicians
like Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar, where the younger artists make it clear just
what a giant and influence they see Jones as. Quincy Jones’ story – one where
he overcame so much, from racism to health scares and everything in between – in
inspiring, as is the documentary. I’d like a deeper dive than we get here – but
at least this is a good primer as to why his life and career are as remarkable
as they are.
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