After directing George Harrison: Living in the Material World and No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese brings to the fore yet another singular musician, this time New York Dolls frontman David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter). More of a concert film than anything, this feature takes place during a live performance Johansen gives during his birthday; his raspy voice and poetic punk songs already tell a story in themselves, but Scorsese intercuts them with the occasional archival footage and interview, careful not to disrupt a glorious musical moment with cheesy throwback scenes.
A Dolls or punk fan will be moved by the resulting film, a fittingly jagged but meaningful oeuvre of a tenacious artist. But if you’re coming to this documentary without much prior knowledge about Johansen, his band, and the era from which he came, you might find it somewhat niche, but overall impressive, informative, and musically thrilling.
"A wily old hooligan with plenty of battery acid still pumping through his veins, Johansen won’t allow himself to be turned into a museum piece visited as a link to the past."
— Charles Bramesco
"The documentary lets its subject’s weathered charisma do most of the hard work here, and yet it weaves in enough context to convince even the biggest New York Dolls neophytes of the band’s legacy."
— David Ehrlich
A portrait of musician David Johansen from Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi featuring a live performance at Café Carlyle in New York City, where he performs as Buster Poindexter singing the Johansen songbook, along with new and archival interviews.
