Dig!

It’s back, it’s better and it’s packing a cucumber. Surely even Johnny Cash’s 1967 conversion to Jesus and clean-living pales beside the current rehabilitation of the documentary.
This formerly ailing beast of a genre visibly struggled by Elvis’ graveside during the '80s and '90s but the newly hip documentary sector and its post-ironic mores have finally provided the rock-doc with a much needed shot in the arm. Like End Of The Century, Some Kind Of Monster and the forthcoming The Devil And Daniel Johnson, Ondi Timoner’s Dig! occupies some curious place between reality TV, spoof hagiography, psychoanalysis and genuine genuflection at the altar of rock.
Filmed over seven years, this splendidly kinetic account of the rivalry between The Dandy Warhols and their one-time idols The Brian Jonestown Massacre has it all – seething jealously, Godzilla-dwarfing egos, handbags at dawn and a great big art versus commerce punch-up.
In the red corner, we have BJM founder, Anton Newcombe – a tortured artist who combines the charms of a rabid rottweiller and Russell Crowe with a telephone. First seen whaling on fellow band member Matt Hollywood while on-stage, the violently charismatic Mr. Newcombe pontificates and punches his way throughout the film, wholly convinced that his retro-folk doodles are actually a form of mind-blowing, life-altering, anti-corporate agitprop.
Indeed, on Planet Newcombe, he and his comrades in The Dandy Warhols were spearheading nothing less than a rawk revolution in the '90s.
Imagine his bitterness when the Dandys just wanted to be plain old rock-stars. Once they (horrified gasp) sign with a record company and start peddling lightly-lipsticked glam pop, their former friend’s disgust is only surpassed by his smack-fuelled resentment of their subsequent success (however moderate that might be).
To be fair, Newcombe is not the only one swallowing his own hype. Courtney Taylor, long after the rift, is seen sighing like a schoolgirl over the BJM man’s proficiency on 12 instruments and multi-tasking musical genius.
Ms. Timoner is equally impressed. Newcombe dominates Dig! and rightly so. A brilliantly deranged and frequently scary protagonist, he’s a perfect focus for the director’s rock-chick dialectics, emerging as both a compelling romantic and a pompous madman. The scene wherein Newcombe visits Courtney’s first video shoot to bitch from the sidelines, while choking back the free food, would alone make Dig! compulsory viewing for anyone who ever fancied themselves a rock-star. That would be everyone then.

Running Time 110 mins. Cert IFI members. Opens July 1