Searching For Sugar Man (spoilers)

Cafe Society
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Searching for Sugar Man

I heard about this movie last summer, but it never played anywhere in Las Vegas so I had to wait for the home release, which was today.

I just got done watching this, and frankly, my reaction to the film was so strong, I was kind of shocked.

For those who’ve never heard of it, let me give a quick synopsis:

In 1969, a couple of record producers discovered a man (Rodriguez) who sang and played guitar in dive bars in Detroit. Just him and an acoustic guitar, with lyrics that were stream-of-consciousness Dylan-esque. They signed him and produced 2 albums, 1970’s Cold Facts and 1971’s Coming From Reality. Both albums were complete flops.

BUT

In aparthied-era South Africa, somehow, his albums became, as one guy puts it, “the soundtracks to our lives”. Everyone owned his albums; he was like Zamfir in South Africa. But nobody in SA had any idea who he was, or where he was, or knew anything at all about him. Rumours had circulated for years that he had killed himself, onstage during a performance. Two guys set out to find the truth.

Years of research and effort finally culminated in a magazine article that somehow found its way over to the US, and the mystery was finally solved: Rodriguez was not dead, he was living in Detroit where he worked as a manual laborer and had raised 3 daughters.

He travels to South Africa, where he discovers that people were not bullshitting him: he is revered like a god. He performs in front of tens of thousands of people, looking and sounding like he has done this every day of his life, rather than haul construction debris on his back for 30 years. And then he goes home and resumes his job as a laborer.

Many of you will remember that I’m a bit of a music detective myself, successfully tracking down a band I loved for almost 20 years without knowing a damn thing about them except for what was written in the scant liner notes of their album (Trees Of Mystery, from San Francisco/SLO, in case anyone is wondering).

So I was very interested in that aspect of the movie. I’m not a fan of most folk music, and I’d never heard anything by Rodriguez before tonight. I don’t know that I could say I’m a fan of his music now, even after watching this movie.

AND YET

I’ve seldom had as strong a reaction to a documentary as I did to this one. I found it completely overwhelming. The last act of the film had me completely devastated. I mean, if I had seen this in a public theatre, I would have been a total distraction to others. It is at once the most uplifting and the saddest and the most emotional and the most stoic thing I’ve ever come across. Sixto Rodriguez is a man who clearly, clearly deserves so much more out of life than he’s gotten, that it breaks my heart.

What’s worse is that I don’t know that I even feel sorry for him. He seems at peace with himself and with the world. His daughters are all attractive, intelligent and seem happy themselves, so he did good raising them. And several times, he’s been able to step out of the mundane and backbreaking life he has in Detroit in order to go be his alter-ego in South Africa, performing for thousands of adoring fans.

Has anyone else seen this movie? Was your reaction as strong as mine?

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I haven’t seen the movie, but his story was featured in a 60 Minutes episode last October, with prominent mention about the movie. My takeaway was similar to yours without the immersion of a feature-length movie. So sad, yet he’s so peaceful and cool about it, I don’t feel sorry for him exactly, but he got so shafted. He just doesn’t dwell on what might have been, and keeps going on with life as it is.

Remarkable.

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I saw it, and was very lucky to know absolutely nothing about Rodriguez or the movie, so every single thing in the film was a complete surprise to me. It literally moved me to tears, and I wish you hadn’t mentioned anything about him, his family or his fate as other people could have had the deeply moving surprise I did.

That said, it was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in quite a while. I can’t remember his name, but this one guy who worked with Rodriguez as a laborer in Detroit came across as one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever seen in a documentary. I though that a whole other film could be made about him, about how this intelligent, sensitive thinker wound up in construction - as if everyone on a construction site has a doctorate in philosophy.

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Oh god yes. I saw it 3 times in the theater and my reaction was just as strong the 3rd time as the 1st, perhaps even stronger the 3rd time because I knew this man better. All 3 times I sat there with tears streaming down my face at several points during the film. Tears of joy. Tears of love for this man. Mixed with tears of sadness that so many years were wasted. Wasted in that he could have been producing music all this time instead of giving up after the two albums. Wasted in that even though he doesn’t care about money himself, he should have been comfortable, and even if he had given it all away over the years as it seems he does now, imagine all the people he didn’t help when he could have been helping them.

But mostly tears of joy, because he was finally found by his fans in South Africa, finally discovered by the rest of the world, finally known by everyone who has seen the movie for his peace with his life, his contentment through all the years he labored hard, his decency, his fatherhood, and his inner grace which is evident in every word he utters and which envelops the movie, and finally his being able to realize that his music was loved, was appreciated, was influential and did not disappear into a void all those years ago, and is being re-discovered every day thanks to the movie and the publicity.

There were also tears of a different sort, tears that so many artists slip through the cracks and are never discovered, never heralded, never as appreciated as they should be. And yes, it’s an acutely personal feeling for me.

I was so thrilled that it received a nomination for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. I can’t hope that it will win, but I do anyway. I would bet the director would bring Rodriguez up on stage with him and the place would go nuts.

I had written a long, rambling post about the movie after I first saw it, but it’s hard to talk about when you’re trying to get people to see it, yet you don’t want to give away the big reveal. I ended up closing the page without finishing the post, but I’m glad you started the thread. I hope the movie does well on DVD. I knew the big reveal before I saw the movie. I wish I hadn’t, because I would have loved to have the experience gaffa did, but I did know, and it really didn’t matter because it was just as fascinating, and just as moving.

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I knew pretty much everything I wrote as my synopsis before I saw the film, and I was still moved like I got hit with a planet.

Dan DiMaggio. I agree; a very thoughtful, articulate man. I bet he and Rodriguez were good co-workers.

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It was awarded the Swedish Guldbagge award for best documentary the other day.

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It didn’t occur to me until I read your post, but Rodriguez is like a real life Bill & Ted for South Africa. His music and his words literally were a blueprint for a better way of life for people there, both enlightening and spurring them to action. This story is just astounding. I cannot stop thinking about it.

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Not to rain on anyone’s parade - I’ve always loved Rodriguez, and the movie’s good - but I think you’re all getting a very distorted view of his importance to South Africans. Generally, here he’s always been a White, middle-class-college-student kind of act, and was filed next to Cat Stevens and Peter Sarsted in the record collection. I think if Rush or The Grateful Dead had any kind of traction here (they absolutely don’t, hell I only first heard of Rush on the Dope) they’d be listened to by the same bunch.

So art-house rebellion, not a soundtrack to revolution. These guys and people like them were much more that.

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The film made it very clear that he was important to White liberals, which is another way of saying the same thing as “White, middle-class-college-student”. The scenes at the concerts were distressingly free of Black faces, but it was basically the same crowd that you’d see at a Dylan concert here in the US. But it would be a mistake to underestimate Dylan’s impact either.

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The guy I was thinking of was Rick Emmerson, the last person interviewed in the film.

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I just watched this. Honestly, until near the end, I had a suspicion that the entire thing was fake. The story seemed almost too far-fetched to be true. (Damn you, skepticism! ;))
It’s an excellent documentary and I’m glad it’s been nominated for an Academy Award. I also thought several of the Rodriguez songs were quite good. I hope it wins the Oscar.

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Why did the filmmakers leave the impression that Rodriguez abandoned the music business in 1971 when in fact he continued to work in it and did a massive tour of Australia - another place he’s popular - in 1979? Before I consider this a great documentary I want to know the answer to that.

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Yeah, he toured Australia in 1979 and 1981 before giving up music to get a degree. The live album released here back then was called Alive to mock the rumours of his death. So the advent of the movie was a bit of a puzzle to me.

Before I saw it I read this excellent talk with director Malik Bendjelloul

I would highly recommend it for fans of the movie, although if you aren’t familiar with the story I’d leave it until after you see it.

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Exactly.

But when Bo says

all I can say is - I, personally, know of precisely no-one who was spurred into action by Rodriguez. The first I heard of it was the movie. Certainly I got more in my formative years from Bragg and from “Biko” than Rodriguez.

Except possibly spurred to go buy some dope - unfortunately, a lot of people thought “Sugarman” was a pro-drugs song and left it at that.

Granted, I can only speak for the segment of White high school and college students I associated with, at one time (mid-late 80s). But that same time was the time the struggle against apartheid was at its height. People were maybe enlightened by Rodriguez, but it was mostly homegrown stuff that spurred them to action or spoke to them, IMO - alternative Afrikaners (read up the history of the Voëlvry movement, for instance), Johnny Clegg, black artists. That’s just going by my experience.

I know what some people say in the movie, but that’s a bunch of committed fans and hindsight, really. I’m not denying that those people were affected like that, I’m saying it really wasn’t a whole movement thing.

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Saw it in a theater last week in Beverly Hills - thought it was terrific. The things that I took away from it were: this music is awesome; and, he did a wonderful job raising his daughters.

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This sounds like an amazing movie so I’m glad I found this thread. Amazon has it for $3.99 to watch instantly and I’m going to this weekend.

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I saw him play Antone’s in Austin in October. Show was sold out and packed with very attentive people (including one woman halfway back who stood on a stool she brought, who does that). He had this special spark and had good banter, but he tuned his guitar more than I’ve ever seen in stage. It was really endearing, and his voice is great. He’s playing Coachella, I haven’t seen the documentary but his career is doing pretty nicely because of it.

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I just watched this and was knocked out even though I “knew” the ending. More fun, my wife knew nothing about it and she watched it with me. Quite a bit of happy
weeping, though having the flu might have helped.

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“Lead and Crime: Why this correlation does mean causation.” by Rick Nevin. Note, this is a link to a pdf.

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Well, that was obviously the wrong thread.