The Heart Is a Drum Machine

Title:              The Heart is a Drum Machine
Director:              Christopher Pomerenke
Producer:            Chris McDaniel (Exec), Ryan Page, Hans Fjellested, Joe Mundo,
                                 Connit Hoy (Co), Christian Castle (Co)
Cinema:                Hans Fjellestad
Editor:                  Hans Fjellested
Music:                   Steven Drozd
Year:                     2009 (75 minutes)

Synopsis: Frank Zappa once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” But what of talking about music? Many of today’s top artists and scholars do just that in this cinematic look at a uniquely human obsession. Celebrities as diverse as the Flaming Lips, the Dandy Warhols, Guns N’ Roses, George Clinton, Elijah Wood, Juliette Lewis, and Tool offer their answers to the seemingly simple but ultimately complex question: What is music? When you unleash more than 100 people to answer the question, you begin to capture the diversity that is music – and humanity. The Heart is a Drum Machine, from the producers who brought us the brilliant Moog, does just that with its surprisingly moving energy. If music be the food of life, then this is the ultimate life-affirming documentary.

Review: Here’s a great idea: Gather together some of the world’s best, most well known artists and ask them to answer one single question: What is music and what does it mean to me? It’s a great idea. And The Heart is a Drum Machine is a great example of how not to do it.

If you’re going to talk to celebrity artists, don’t go for the B-list. And rather than including all types of artists, stick primarily with musicians (or exclusively with musicians).

Why are Elijah Wood and Juliette Lewis in this film? I’m guessing that Wood is in because he owns an indy record label. I’m still not sure about Lewis.

Why did one artist just stare into the camera while his description of what music was to him was given in sub-titles? I think it had something to do with his feeling that music provides tension to life (or something like that), but I’m just guessing.

Why do so many musicians have such a hard time putting together a few sentences into a coherent thought? And why did the filmmakers fell compelled to include those incoherent thoughts in the film?

The Heart is a Drum Machine is simply not a good movie. It is poorly done, contains too many gimmicky graphics, too many non-sensical interviews, and in the end it commits the cardinal sin of documentary filmmaking; it is boring.

(2.0 out of 3.0)