Chicago Sun-Times
July 30, 1999
Storefront Hitchcock
by Jim DeRogatis
In 1987, director Jonathan Demme (The Silence Of The Lambs, Philadelphia) trained his camera on an obscure monologist. Spalding Gray did little more than sit behind a desk while spinning the humorous yarn of his small role in The Killing Fields. But Demme slyly highlighted the visual nature of Gray's words, and the movie, Swimming To Cambodia, expanded the humorist's following from a small cult into a larger, more devoted cult.
A discerning music fan (he also directed Talking Heads' movie Stop Making Sense), Demme hoped to do something similar for Robyn Hitchcock with the 1998 concert film Storefront Hitchcock. But despite his status as an Oscar winner, exhibitors across the country were reluctant to show a film about an underground musician they'd never heard of.
That's a shame, because Hitchcock is at a career high-point to rival his early days with The Soft Boys or his mid-'80s College Pop period with The Egyptians. His new album, Jewels For Sophia, was released by Warner Bros. last week. In addition to gonzo tributes to Gene Hackman, the many varieties of cheeses and a monster called "The Antwoman", it features some of his most heartfelt and effective songwriting in tunes such as "I Feel Beautiful" and "No, I Don't Remember Guildford" (an early version of which is heard in the movie).
Storefront Hitchcock finally makes its Chicago premiere today at Facets Multimedia, 1517 W Fullerton. It will be shown nightly through Thursday at 7 and 9, as well as 3 and 5 p.m.. Saturday and Sunday; call (773) 281-4114 for more information.
There isn't much action or fancy camerawork; it's the furthest thing from MTV imaginable as Demme simply trains his camera on Hitchcock during a performance in an empty storefront on New York's 14th Street. But as such, the movie does an excellent job of presenting a distinctive songwriter. By my count, Hitchcock has recorded some 265 tunes over the last 20 years, and the film's setlist samples some of the best of them ("Glass Hotel", "Let's Go Thundering", "1974").
In between, the psychedelic troubadour delivers his famous Dadaist raps, which are part Monty Python and part Beat/Bob Dylan. At one point he talks about how his native Isle Of Wight is eroding by a few inches a year, forcing the ghosts that hover over the land out to sea. Someday soon the same will happen to him, he says.
Maybe so, but the new album and the movie prove that Hitchcock is still far from treading water.
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