Moog (2004)

I REALLY like the approach the filmmakers took to present the work of legendary electronic music pioneer Dr. Moog. The film features scenes of Dr. Moog interacting with various musical artists who view Moog as an influential figure in the history of electronic music.The film is not a comprehensive history of electronic music nor does it serve as a chronological history of the development of the Moog synthesizer. There is no narration, rather the scenes feature candid conversation and interviews that serve more as a tribute to Moog than a documentary.Critics called the film structureless. Maybe. I think that's a feature, not a bug.

Although I'm not a massive fan of electronic music but I have sufficient interest in the genre to check out this documentary on the inventor of the electronic synthesizer, Robert Moog. Watching this film was probably not the best way to try and find out more about the man, the instrument and its impact. As many others on this internet site have already pointed out, director Hans Fjellestad does a really average job of doing anything in this film.The one thing he does appear to be good at selling himself to potential subjects because the film does have a reasonably good array of people on hand to discuss what they do with it and particularly Fjellestad has Moog pretty much on tap throughout the film. It looks like the plan has been to point the camera at whoever is talking, film it and work out the detail in the edit. Sometimes that works and of course with reality shows and the like that is pretty much all you can do but in the vast majority of cases it is a recipe for disaster. So it is here in a film that lacks structure to the point that if Moog wants to ramble endlessly while pottering round his garden then that makes the cut but hardly anytime can be found for many artists that one would associate with the synthesizer. OK, maybe rights to the music or access to the artists was an issue due to the low budget but this is not much of an excuse.Astonishingly the film is barely over an hour long and it is testament to how poor it is that it feels like it never ends. God help us if we ever see an extended cut of this because imagine the footage that they didn't feel worthy of making it into this version! Anyway, I stuck with it but ultimately there is almost nothing of value here; my mind was open to learning more about the impact this instrument had had but it falls down in this regard with a lack of structure and aim that must be laid right at the doors of the director and producers. A totally missed opportunity.

The film was reasonably well filmed and reasonably edited and it's great that there is now a film out there about a synth pioneer.However my first thoughts on watching this film are: It repeats itself far too many times. It only needed to mention that Moog synths were first used for experimental music and adverts once. It only needed to show Bob Moog with his garden once! And there only needed to be one section on his philosophies on life and synthesisers.There were massive sections of the Moog story missing. What about the first fall of Moog Music in the early 80s and the Moog Liberation (the first guitar synth - only problem was it was too heavy to hold!) He only touched on his feelings about digital synthesisers. What about the 80s and the DX7 and Moog synths falling massively out of favour. What about the comeback in the 90s - initially selling his analogue circuit designs to other companies, who produced synths like the MIDI Moog and the SE ATC1. What about his FX pedals? Finally the soundtrack left much to be desired. All the live performances were badly recorded, the synths were far too loud compared to the backing. I know the synth was the instrument being demonstrated, but I found it uncomfortable to listen to. The content of the music was nearly all progressive rock musicians and various lesser known modern electro acts (bar stereo-lab and DJ spooky). He only mentioned Walter/Wendy Carlos in passing, he/she was the most important thing to happen to him and there was no interview or audio clip!! What about electropop, which was founded on the early affordable synths like the Moog Prodigy? These are just the first 2 genres that spring to mind that were missing - I could go on! So all in all - it's great that there is now a film about this fascinating guy. But...Hans Fjellestad should have got all the raw materials together before doing it. Get interviews with ALL the relevant people and use a soundtrack that is more diverse.

I enjoyed watching this homage to the synthesizer inventor and all round nice guy Bob Moog but spent hours afterward discussing ways this documentary could have been better. That's not to say there's all that much wrong with it except that it suffers from a genuine lack of archive footage. Bob was building his Synths from the early 60s, before that he was making Theremins. There's no footage of any of this. 'Why not use stills and rostrum?' was my immediate thought.It was great to hear Moog Synths being played well. Rick Wakemen (who provides the film's one big laugh) made them sound good. In fact, just to hear people messing about on them was interesting. I wanted more of this and perhaps some insights into how they were used in the studio (the film concentrates mainly on live performance).Perhaps just a bit too much time was spent allowing Bob to share his rather vague (and, sorry to say this, slightly boring) view of the universe. Not that the Doc as a whole is boring, it is not. It is very watchable and only 70 minutes long. Though I wanted something more from it, it did do what it set out to do without sagging.