The Police: Everyone Stares - The Police Inside Out | FESTIVALPHOTO
The Police: Everyone Stares - The Police Inside Out
For those people thinking “déjà vu”, then you are correct, this is a re-release of the Stewart Copeland film originally released many many years ago.
Not many people would think about documenting a band that had just been formed, but hats off to Stewart though for thinking of filming the early days of the Police, it must have been hard with the technology they had back then, a very basic, quite big and clumsy super 8 movie camera. To lug that thing around everywhere and then to actually use it takes dedication.
And here lies the rub, I just do not see this appealing to many other people except hard core Police fans, due to its minimal content. There is some great footage from their early tours of the USA where it is just Stewart, Sting and Andy having real fun on tour in backwater America. Then the Police hit the big time and fame takes over with everybody wanting a piece of them. There is some truly jaw dropping footage of fans back stage trying to rip the bands “get-a-away” car apart and banging on the windows, trying to get at the group, pretty scary stuff for the band members I would imagine.
However this film is slightly frustrating as it could and should be more interesting than it is. The footage is fine, if not a little patchy in places, but it seems that as the bands fame grew, Stewart felt less and less inclined to pick up the camera, which is a shame, as there is a real lack of footage of the last few years of the band's existence.
Stewart has worked his magic though on the limited amount of footage he had, less than 50 hours’ worth I believe. I did find this to be a fascinating insight into how the Police went from reggae-injected pop/rock gig openers to headlining stadium super group.
The final shot from the camera is a satirical scene where the band are chained to railings on a skyscraper in France, in 1984. Sting says to the camera, 'So this is how it ends... all our efforts for this... I blame the man behind this camera for all my problems!'
There are Bonus features off course, one worth watching is the commentary over the whole movie from Stewart and Andy, looking back on the 'good old days' before the band reformed in 2007, but where was Sting in all this, surely he could have made the effort.
Other extras are Behind Andy's camel, which is a humorous and quick look at some more footage of the band's years which I would imagine didn’t make the final cut and Jools Holland is featured in one concert from the early 80's.
