Every Picture Tells A Story: Harvey Kubernik's 'Screen Gems'

Tracking Angle contributor Harvey Kubernik's latest book proves "dancing about architecture" - or moving pictures - isn't so bad

Rule number one: every documentary has an angle.

I’ve experienced how a “rock doc” can rewrite its subject’s history. In the twilight of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Jackson’s radical re-edit (his angle) of Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be footage swept a touch-starved Beatles fanbase. The joy! The memes! Glyn Johns’s fabulous outfits! Jackson’s presentation of the Get Back project fundamentally changed the narrative of the Beatles’ January 1969 sessions.

There's something lost in writing this experience out. You had to feel it as you watched the Fab Four get to work, grow apart, and come together again on your little laptop screen across a ten-hour docuseries.

Having come from music journalism, Harvey Kubernik would know the "every documentary has an angle" rule. Screen Gems: Pop Music Documentaries & Rock and Roll TV Scenes is his third book about the “rock doc,” and 21st overall.

Writing about film invokes that old “dancing about architecture” adage. The visual element is lost. Personalities are flattened to words on the page, and it’s up to the author to pull one hell of a load. They must keep the characters alive and their own voice as a writer intact. It seems Kubernik thinks like Baudelaire in this respect. He thought the truest response to a work of art – the purest act of criticism – would be to produce a second work in a different medium. For example, poetry might better-suited to convey the beauty of a painting than a rational study. Or maybe a writer with an especially vibrant voice could translate film to the page.

Above all else, Kubernik’s writing is vibrant. A fittingly eccentric foreword from Andrew Loog Oldham kicks off Kubernik’s own angle on the rock doc: “premeditated and impulsive selections complet(ing) a circle of destination in belonging, as seen in the true ‘HarveyVision’ on the IMAX screen of (his) mind.” Equal parts premeditated and impulsive this is. In lieu of a chronological history of the rock doc, Screen Gems swirls together the histories of nearly every major music documentary of the past six decades – the ones Kubernik hasn’t already written about, anyway.

Kubernik, the man and the cinephile, was born in Los Angeles. He saw The Girl Can’t Help It and The T.A.M.I. Show (among many others he won’t hesitate to list) on the big screen, and got caught in the surfing-movie tide. His mother worked for the titular Screen Gems production company. Kubernik allows himself to get totally swept up in his twin loves for music and film, going on tangents at least once per chapter. Characters are never flattened for the page. Martin Lewis takes a shot at “slavish Beatles copycats" the Stones (crazy work for a book published in 2026) and Billy Stewart barges into the studio cursing up a storm about...stuffed crabs? Once in a while, the author himself wanders into frame as an extra. Such is the life of a born-and-raised Angelino. Look for nuggets like these tucked into every chapter and you’re sure to be entertained.

My designated “remember this for x-y-z other project” stationary flags were flying! The chapters on Alex Winter’s Zappa and the works of Alison Ellwood alone are worth the price of admission. Two presentations of the Beatles in India on film are given, and neither attempt to solve the enduring mystery of what the hell triggered their dramatic flight from Rishikesh. Instead, they focus on the human element; Meeting The Beatles in India revolves around director Paul Saltzman’s own deeply personal experience on the ashram. In his introduction, Kubernik presents Screen Gems as a reference for the reader to keep handy with their popcorn as they traverse the world of the rock doc. With how jam-packed every chapter is with information, Screen Gems is best for reading by topic.

As impressive as Kubernik's juggling of narratives is, I believe Screen Gems is strongest when its author is placed as interviewer. No point in the text understands “every documentary has an angle” better than the chapter on Don’t Look Back. Thanks to great rapport with his subject (Kubernik pulls from several interviews across 17 years,) director D.A. Pennebaker tells of his love of jazz, how he centers music in his craft, and the struggle of getting Don’t Look Back screened in the first place. He doesn't approach filmmaking with the theater in mind. To Pennebaker, his subjects are actors in a stage play. It’s not far off from how Kubernik presents Screen Gems. Hundreds of characters mill about, loosely connected by the theme of the rock doc. The author serves as narrator of the show. He largely edits himself out of these conversations. Still, Kubernik’s enduring fascination with and respect of the players behind the lens can’t help but shine through in the responses he gets. I’d gladly shell out for a book of full, unedited interviews he’s conducted.

Just one more pass from the “continuity clerk” would have benefited this book – every editor misses something. From the sheer volume of information presented it's clear that Kubernik meticulously assembles his books. He even stylizes Don’t Look Back without an apostrophe, consistent with the original film poster! Kubernik is a step above being a wealth of knowledge, he can place it all in the broader rock-and-roll multiverse of madness. The presentation of his first-hand experience deserves that same care.

Had it been penned by an author who doesn’t write in Technicolor, Screen Gems might read as a rock-inclined cinephile’s grocery list. Coming from Kubernik and his angle: his penchant for B-plots, side characters, cameo appearances, and minor (but no less worthy!) subjects like The Seeds and the Go-Go’s, it works. Screen Gems dances about architecture until the sprawling 375 pages lose the soles of their shoes.