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While the band was incredibly influential after blasting onto the rock stage in the early ’70s, the New York Dolls came along about two or three years too soon for me to really have gotten into them and by the time I might have the band splintered and David Johanson more or less spoiled things with his Buster Poindexter act. Not to mention I had second generation, “improved” versions in the form of the Clash, the Talking Heads and so on who took the raw inspiration of the Dolls and made it–let’s be honest–more radio friendly.
New York Doll is a documentary made in 2004 about Arthur “Killer” Kane, the Dolls’ bass player, by Greg Whiteley in the weeks leading up the band’s first reunion concert in nearly 30 years at the 2004 Meltdown Festival in London. Whiteley, a recent art school grad, had become friends with Kane through their membership in the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles and got the idea for the film after Arthur told him about the concert.
Its a small film, barely 85 minutes or so, with almost no production values, just a single camera pointed at whoever’s talking with a little footage of the old days and from the Meltdown shown cut in. Kane is the dominant character but not dominant himself, I felt like he was about at peace with the highs and lows of his life but that his life energy bank account was almost all drawn down. Meaning I was not surprised when, just three weeks after the big reunion concert, he died.
“Aging’s not for sissies” is a quote I heard years ago, apparently attributed to Lucille Ball though that’s not where I hard it, and Kane’s life is proof of it. At 21 he was riding high, literally of course from drugs and booze, just about becoming the next rock god, but at 31 he was in the gutter with no money, no skills, no friends. He got the chance to resolve the demons that plagued him after the band broke up, which is something quite rare.
A big part of this film’s appeal is that Whiteley doesn’t try and make a history of the Dolls. He doesn’t show us, for instance, how they came together or the details of their breakup but mainly shots of their flamboyant lifestyle and footage of their appearance on an episode of the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test. Instead the camera follows Arthur on his bus rides to and from work–yes, the man is too broke to own a car… in Los Angeles–and comments from a few of his co-workers at the LDS Library of Family History and his bishops. Mainly we get Arthur, 30 years after he stopped wearing the makeup and dresses.
recommended
