The gen z listens to the blur because nothing has changed

After some classic documentaries on the band’s musical history and a live film on the historic concert in Wembley, “Blur: to the End” says the Brit pop icon band of the 90s for what it is today: aged, less connected than once, but still able to work and play on the same wavelength. The opportunity given it the reunion of 2023, When the Blur made a surprise return with a lot of unreleased albums, the first printing given after a silence of 8 years.
“In those years I received multiple phone calls from Downing Street or Palace who, from the other members of the band,” ironize the guitarist Graham Coxon at the beginning of the documentary, dusting off that pungent humor that emerges in all the music of the Blur,

The very British approach with which the members of the band in the DOC are closer, As if to recover the measures on the other, study. Up to moments of intense mutual honesty, of not filtered emotion, Like when Damon Albarn feels the provisional recording of “The Ballad of Darren” and cries for the first time. And Graham misunderstood and thinks he is giving up.
How to connect with a band of professionals at this level, Especially when you have been fans since guys from the same? How do you overcome that impasse of having to be natural in front of the cameras always present in the room, up to giving such not filtered, powerful moments?

I talked about it with the Documentaryist Toby L.director of “Blur: to the end” e veteran of the back of the behind the scenes of the musical industry, Also accustomed to the story of celebrities of the sector, even those of non -accommodating character. Toby worked with the Blur after directing documentaries and live concerts dedicated to Rihanna, at Bastille, Liam Gallagher.

How was this project born?

I dealt with the filming of the Wembley of Blur concert, which then became a two -hour live entitled “Blur: Live at Wembley Stadium”. In all honesty, a couple of months before that moment we were of the director team to send a proposal to the names involved in production. Fortunately, they decided to organize a meeting with the band and propose the idea of ​​a docufilm that was a sort of story of the return to the scenes and their great triumph at Wembley. Fortunately, we managed to convince them in 45 minutes that that was really a good time to make another documentary on the Blur.

How did you convince them?

I explained to him that this time we would have concentrated on the moment of their life they are living, talking more of their evolution of people now adults, what they do, of the life that lead more than the simple nostalgic memory of the 90s. I wanted to talk to each other with great honesty and realism of their relationship between members of the band who now lead separate lives.

How long have you followed them?

For six months, not continuously but alternating moments of pause. I didn’t want it to be a static documentary shot everything in the studio, we wanted to be very on the road, so we reached them as soon as they moved for a stage of the tour or to do something together. I thought it would be more authentic like this.

Once the material has been collected, how much did you want to mount the film and what did you get guided to choose what to include and what not?

The final monster of every documentary maker is assembly.

Arrivi in ​​the studio, you know you have excellent material and then you find yourself in front of this mountain of turning and think “Oh my God, and now how do I do it?”. I often say that it is like fighting with 15 sharks simultaneously. For this film the battle lasted 9 months. It is like a truly complicated puzzle, sometimes I feel lost, confused, you lose your head. In the end, however, it is all this effort you repay you.
What makes the assembly process difficult is when you find yourself in front of a really fun moment or a very moving one, which however does not fall into the narrative you have established, in the rules you have given yourself. You are aware that you have to get rid of it, but the heart cries. It matters that we had something like 350 hours of shot and there have been several moments like this.

350 hours?

Yes, hundreds and hundreds of shot with the band in their moments of normal. Some moments were gaming out, but I’m really happy with the result. What you will see is the film about the band I wanted to do, what I wanted their audience to see. Whether people like it or not, fuck you, I don’t care. This is what I wanted to tell about the blur, who they are today.

It is no mystery that you are a big fan of the band, since she is a boy. Compared to when you worked with the Bastille or Rihanna, this emotional closeness to the subject how did you change your work?

As a documentary maker when you spend a lot of time with people, in the end you always find a common meeting, a connection.

When you follow a musician for weeks you end up falling in love with his work, his music, even if you are not so interested in the beginning. But you’re right, I have a lasting and special connection with the music of the blur. Personally I tend to go in the opposite direction, to try to keep me as detached as possible, to be hard on my positions, repeating myself: “You are a fan, you must be irreproachable and cold”.
At the same time you have a great knowledge of their work, their art, one that you cannot put together by reading some books and interviews a couple of weeks earlier, right? So there is that special moment on the set when one of the blur asked another “How was the song that we did in this year?” And I could answer “he was entitled like that”. It happened a couple of times and I think he has helped to create a connection, a sense of trust. They feel that you are not just there for work, that you really care about what they do, right?

The Blur say the same things that I hear to Celine Dion and Beach Boys in similar projects. The way they speak of death, of warning, in a certain sense of becoming the people who did not want to be, with the house in the countryside and the hens … yet they are much younger …

It was a theme that I kept a lot, that I wanted it to come out. I attend them from before working on this project, so I know from experience that they are truly direct, honest people. Damon in particular is very honest and directed in interviews and with journalists, so much so that some inspire almost fear, fear. Instead, I think it’s fantastic: I don’t want the subjects of my work to tell me bullshit and the blur do not do it.

Even if everyone does it in his own way.

Definitely, each member of the band has their own way to communicate with others and with the camera. They are very intelligent people, who make very articulated reasoning. For this reason I knew I had to have to focus on this story of what they are feeling in the face of warning both from an artistic and mental point of view and merely from the physical one, in their performer body. Fortunately for me, they were very open on the subject.

Why did you want to include that clip of young fans of the Blur, who were not yet in the 90s, who describe their music?

It was not among my purposes to direct a nostalgic film, I did not find it interesting, even if that component at some point becomes undeniable, right? While we were there in the backstage of these concerts I could not fail to notice how a large part of the audience was half of my years. I started talking to us because I wanted to understand for them what it was interesting, what had attracted them to the music of the Blur. I wanted to include that scene in the final documentary because the answers they gave me are the same that we dates in the mid -90s. I wanted to show how the messages, the Blur music connections are passing from generation to generation because they are still relevant in the current political and social climate. It is a depressing realization, in a certain sense.

Let me a concrete example.

It is truly depressing, for example, see how “Rubbish” – this very English and very negative term – is still considered perfect to express the present by the new fans of the Blurs. A band that wrote the album “Modern Life Is Rubbish” in 1993. The corruption and political greed that impact the life of ordinary people were then denounced and today’s young people still feel a connection, a relevance with that social criticism, Unfortunately very current.

“Blur: to the end” is in Italian theaters, distributed by Adler, until February 26, 2025.