by Hunter Stuart
The idea behind the new documentary The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights (2009), which was directed by Emmett Malloy and which premieres tonight at SXSW in Austin, was for the iconic rock band The White Stripes to spend a summer touring Canada—playing in every province and territory, from Nunavut to Nova Scotia.
“We’d been all around the world,” the band’s songwriter and frontman Jack White tells us, “and Canada was the only country that turned us away. And we lived right across the street.” And so in the summer of 2007, the band (which consists only of Jack and his pretend-sister—note: actual ex-wife—Meg White) set out from their hometown of Detroit to begin their continental tour of Canada.
We see them board a red-and-white twin-engine jet—packed with red-and-white electric guitars, red-and-white drums, a full red-and-white wardrobe for each of them, red microphone stands wrapped in white wires, and amps emblazoned with symmetrical Canadian flags, which consist, of course, of a bright red maple leaf on a background of pure white—and fly to the Yukon.
The band first performs in a small town park in the city of Whitehorse (Jack singing “Black Jack Davey” on his Rita-Hayworth-painted hollow-body guitar and slide). The band’s choice of venue only gets weirder—over the course of the 90-minute film we see them play on a city bus in Winnipeg, at a pool hall in Halifax, a bowling alley in Saskatoon, aboard a fishing boat in Prince Edward Island, at a flour mill in Ontario, and an assembly of Inuit elders in a town called Iqaluit (in the northeastern territory of Nunavut).
But don’t think the cutesy choice of venue and extreme color-coordination (even some of the film itself is tinted red) keep the band from rocking the f**k out. “People think everything about us is so pre-meditated,” Jack complains. “But really, the music controls us.” Cut to grainy film footage of Jack on stage with his guitar, staggering backwards, knocking over mike stands and keyboards, so enthralled is he with the power chords he’s playing.
Director Emmett Malloy, knowing The White Stripes (and their fans) are here for the music, keeps the interviews to a bare minimum. (He used soundbytes from only one formal interview the whole summer—with Jack and Meg seated side-by-side in a small cabin where a roadie naps on a cot in the background.) Jack is articulate when he speaks about the creative process behind his songwriting–but even this is brief. And though the camera loves to capture her image, Meg hardly says a word the whole time, and when she does, she’s so softspoken the filmmakers were forced to use subtitles. The theater, too, was utterly silent. Mostly what speaks is the music.
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(If Austin’s too crowded for you, download the torrent for the film and watch it on your laptop in your Greenpoint/Williamsburg bedroom: just watch out for the cyber cops!)
OR: If you’ve got a TV, check out IFC Festival Direct, available with comcast, cablevision and time warner (http://www.ifcfilms.com/).
