LOOK AWAY
UK, 2021, 90 minutes, Colour.
Kari Krome, Julia Holcombe, Sheila Kennedy, Jackie Fuchs.
Directed by Sophie Cunningham, Ben Steele.
This is a very disturbing documentary. It is very much a result of the Me Too# movement and revelations, subsequent court cases and imprisonment of offenders.
The particular focus here is the music industry. And, even more specifically, the American music industry of the 1970s. The title of the film comes from Iggy Pop’s song of the same name and his having had a sexual liaison with a 13-year-old.
The film uses quite a number of interviews, lengthy interviews, an opportunity for abused women to speak, to be heard, to be seen. The perpetrators are seen in archival footage. And, there are quite a number of commentators, journalists, women involved in the music business, reflecting on the period, critical of what went on, confirming the interviews of the abused women.
A lot of attention is given to Julia Holcombe, a rather wild 15-year-old who became infatuated with Steven Tyler of Aerowsmith, was introduced, they bonded, a relationship and her touring with him, his wanting to make her his ward and adopt her, which happened. Julia is very frank and plain in her telling of the story.
Kari Krome, songwriter, seen in 70s footage, is very frank in her comments about behaviour, and especially in relation to Rodney Bingenmaier, proprietor of popular LA club, English Disco, where he fostered an atmosphere of freedom, enabling this kind of sexual behaviour, unlimited.
Sheila Kennedy, a Penthouse model, offers a certain graphic description of abusive behaviour by Guns ‘n Roses lead singer, Axl Rose.
The young bassist for the girls’ group, The Runaways, Jackie Fuchs, gives quite a horrendous account of the manager, Kim Fowley, and her being subjected, drugged, to gross abuse. After leaving The Runaways, Jackie Fuchs became a lawyer and tells her story, after almost half a century, with conviction.
In only 90 minutes, this documentary, frank, frightening, direct, makes quite an impact and invites a great deal of reassessment of culture in the music industry, especially in the 1970s, the status of the rock stars and their personal and private behaviour, no holds barred, no limits. To be judged in the light of 21st-century new awareness.
According to Sophie Cunningham, the purpose of the film "is not necessarily about seeking justice in the legal sense, but having a voice – and trying to instigate change. Although we are focusing on a certain era in this film, the music industry is still functioning in a very, very similar way.
Through the lens of 2021, laid out in black and white, it all seems pretty shocking. But perhaps more shocking is that for years, this kind of behaviour wasn't at all shocking.
"I think a lot of the times the artists themselves have written about their escapades with their girlfriends or what they got up to during this era and you never really hear from the women," says Cunningham.
"Musicians were these godlike creatures, especially at that time. There were power structures that enabled them; as long as they were selling records and as long as they were making money for the big record companies, I think there was a general understanding [they] could pretty much get away with anything and also it could all just be written up as an excess of the time.
"It's very, very easy to think 'It was different then, it was hedonistic, the world was a different place'. But I think it's clear from the women who've spoken out that their experiences as [teenage] girls impacted them in the same way that they would if it happened to [teenagers] now. It's not a different era, it's just that we look at it differently."
