Parky at the Pictures (DVD 11/4/2019)

When we first meet Alex Honnold, he is climbing a sheer face whose height only becomes apparent when he makes it to the top and the camera peers over the edge to see what he has just negotiated. As the veteran of such iconic challenges as the Moonlight Buttress in Zion National Park and the Half Dome in Yosemite, Honnold is a master of the unaided climbing style known as `free soloing'. He has made over 1000 free solo ascents and keeps contemplating becoming the first to conquer El Cap without equipment. But even he admits it's a scary prospect and vows not to attempt it until he has plotted the safest way up the Freerider route. 

Having watched him climb with boyhood hero Tommy Caldwell, Chin ventures into Honnold's camper van to learn about his veggie lifestyle and how he got into climbing as a lonely kid in Sacramento, California. He also introduces us to Honnold's new girlfriend, Sanni McCandless, who gave him her number at a book signing in Seattle and occasionally joins him for some rope climbs. However, he considered breaking up with her when she let a rope slip and he suffered compression fractures that might have jeopardised the career he had spoken so nonchalantly about while visiting his old school to promote his foundation, which is dedicated to alleviating global poverty through finding eco solutions. 

But Sanni survived and continued to support his ambitions, even though he admits that climbing would always come before commitment. Thus, when he heads to the limestone cliffs at Taghia in Morocco, his companion is Caldwell, as he wants to use the trip as a training exercise to prepare for a possible tilt at El Cap. Chin and fellow climber-cameraman Mikey Schaefer also see this venture as a valuable pre-Cap operation, as they need to work out how to film Honnold with the latest equipment without causing any distractions that might lead to disaster. They concede that they are apprehensive when filming free solo expeditions because such fabled climbers as John Backer, Sean Leary, Derek Hersey, Dan Osman and Dean Potter. 

Curious to understand how his brain copes with fear, Honnold has an MRI scan and is told that his amygdala needs greater than average amounts of stimulus in order to register concern. He laughs this off, but reveals that he doesn't allow himself to get hang-ups, as he prefers to expand his comfort zone by confronting difficult manoeuvres. But even he can make mistakes and, while on the Freeblast Slab part of El Cap with Sanni, he falls 30ft on a rope and suffers a severely sprained ankle. He refuses to remain inactive for long, however, and mother Dierdre Wolownick insists she would never prevent her son from doing what makes him happiest. She recalls how her husband had a passion for travelling and a careless way with words that might have given Honnold the inferiority complex that he has sought to vanquish by climbing. But he avers that he doesn't remember the casual insults and has nothing but admiration for a father who coped with a form of Asperger's and always encouraged his climbing. 

Sanni suggests she would feel differently about holding her tongue if they were married with a family. But she joins him at a gym wall just days after his accident, when he insists on climbing with his protective boot still on. She persuades him to spend some Halloween time with friends and their kids, but he doesn't like being told when to have fun and is more interested in familiarising himself with such El Cap features as Freeblast, Hollow Flake, Monster Offwidth, Enduro Corner, Teflon Corner and the Boulder Problem. The latter requires him to perform an intricate and risky karate kick movement and he attempts it with a rope under Caldwell's supervision and he feels good about it. But fellow free soloist Peter Croft expresses his concerns about taking on El Cap without a fallback and questions whether being filmed is adding unnecessary pressure to an already fraught assignment. 

Chin and crew member Cheyne Lempe are also nervous about doing something that could sap his concentration. As a consequence, they decide to change on camera placement as Honnold isn't happy with it. But, when Sanni confides her own disquiet about his attempt, he bluntly informs her that he feels no obligation to take her feelings into consideration because having no emotional ties is part of the psychological armour he dons to make himself feel invincible. She nods quietly at the end of a conversation on the evening before he climbs and accepts that her boyfriend is going to attempt a free solo climb of El Cap whether she likes it or not. 

As it's late in the season, Honnold decides to leave before dawn to ensure he gets the best light on the trickiest sections. But something spooks him on Freeblast and he bales out and blames the presence of the cameras. Sanni is relieved and, three months later, she coaxes Honnold into buying a house in Las Vegas. He doesn't particularly enjoy shopping for fridges, but concedes that she has brought him out of himself and that this is the best relationship he has had so far. She hopes he has got El Capitan out of his system, but he tells fellow climber Mark Synnott that he has to give it a better shot and he sets out again in the Spring of 2017.

Synnott takes it upon himself to tell Chin how much pressure the cameras are adding and he offers to withdraw so Honnold can climb on his own terms. But his warrior spirit prevails, even though he is disconcerted by news of the death of Swiss legend Ueli Steck. He bids farewell to Sanni, who has to pull over to shed a few tears after she drives away because the thought hits her that she might have seen her lover for the last time. Schaefer is also apprehensive, as he will be operating the long-lens camera from ground level and will have the best view in Yosemite during the climb. 

Honnold goes into the zone while driving to the site on 3 June and the only voices we hear for the duration of the attempt are those of the camera crew via walkie-talkies. This is a neat way of identifying where Honnold is on the rock face and how quickly and confidently he's progressing. But it also feels somewhat contrived and it would have been much better to have presented the whole bid in silence, with no voices or music to compete with the sound of Honnold breathing and grunting with the sheer exertion involved. Instead, the commentary as he attempts the karate kick and is left exposed on the outcrop at Traverse feels as intrusive as the Marco Beltrami score that recalls the cheesy tension music used when a competitor is going against the clock in a TV quiz show. However, the decision to edit the three hours and 56 minutes it took Honnold to reach the top down to about 20 minutes pays off handsomely, as even though it's obvious from the outset that he is going to make it, any longer in such a vertiginous setting would have been unbearable. 

Having shared the moment with Chin and the other crew members at the peak, Honnold calls Sanni and admits to being a bit emotional. He even manages to tell her that he loves and appreciates her as he starts his descent. They hug on being reunited in his camper and she can't resist reminding him that he doesn't have to do this again. Her face is a picture, therefore, when Chin and Vasarhelyi cut back to her after Honnold hopes that a kid out there will find a cooler feat to top him - unless he decides to take a crack at it first. 

In the good old days of the silent serial, a sign-off such as this would have been called a cliffhanger ending. Who knows where Honnold's ambitions will take him next, but there seems little doubt that he will eventually set his sights on something much more reckless than marriage. One fears he could follow the likes of daredevil wingsuiter Alexander Polli, whose exploits were featured posthumously in Richard Parry's Base. But, as Jennifer Peedom demonstrated in Mountain (both 2017), there's seemingly no known cure for adrenaline addiction and Sanni will have to face the fact that her chap's machismo is a key component of his make-up. Nonetheless, one can only wish them all the best for their future. 

As for Chin and Vasarhelyi, they may well have peaked as bergfilme-makers, as it's hard to see how they are ever going to top this engrossing profile. Clearly, Honnold trusts them implicitly and their insights into his relationship with Sanni are as thoughtful as their approach to filming the free solo sequences. Making use of remote-operated rigs, as well as drone cameras, the duo provide the viewer with the ultimate POV shots and anyone afraid of heights is going to find this a monumentally challenging watch, even on disc or download. Imagine this on an IMAX screen. Yikes. 

Apart from the misjudged drone during the 3 June sequence, the score switches effectively between mellow moments and pulsating passages, while Bob Eisenhardt's cutting and Felipe Messeder's sound editing are spot on. But the technical heroes are the camera operators, who perched on ledges and dangled from ropes to capture the astonishing footage that one can only hope that Honnold gets to watch in his old age.

While serving as a camera assistant on pictures like Wally Pfister's Transcendence (2014) and Spike Lee's Chi-Raq (2015), Bing Liu was recording hours of footage of himself and two skateboarding friends from Rockford, Illinois. Often holding the camera while careering through the empty streets on his board, Liu mostly kept the edge of the frame. But he is a vital presence in Minding the Gap, a remarkable documentary that shows what happens to the skaters from films like Stacey Peralta's Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) who didn't go on to land lucrative sponsorship and endorsement contracts and inspire a generation of alienated slackers. In many ways, this resembles executive producer Steve James's Oscar-winning basketball study, Hoop Dreams (1995). But it also feels like a compressed version of Michael Apted's celebrated Up series, which began with Seven Up! in 1964 and will continue with 63 Up later this year

Chinese-American Bing Liu has spent 12 years filming pals Zack Mulligan and Keire Johnson. As Zack is white and Keire is black and younger than the other two, they make a distinctive trio, as they spurn the custom-built skate parks to zip around the streets and concourses of Rockford, Illinois on their battered boards. We first see them climbing a fire escape before deciding not to do anything reckless and return to ground level to glide with an relishable sense of freedom across a traffic-free bridge and off into the dusk distance. 

The scene is deceptive, however, as the trio's daily lives are anything but blissfully carefree. Seventeen year-old Zack is expecting a baby with girlfriend Nina Bowgren. But, as he divides his time between skating and smoking dope, the need to become a responsible adult seems beyond him. By contrast, mother Roberta considers Keire to be a bright lad who can find a niche in the world. However, as he was often brutally beaten by his father as a child, he has developed a fearsome temper and Liu records him smashing his own skateboard and that of a kid who had been bullying him. When asked about the incident, Keire declares that the parental punishments he used to receive would nowadays be considered child abuse and he admits to having cried as a boy because he believed everyone did. 

Some years after their skating heyday, Liu pays a call on Eric, the owner of Groundfloor Skateboards, who had been convinced he was gay because he was such an introspective child. However, he had discovered that Liu was having such problems with his mom that skating had become his way of staying sane rather than just looking cool. We see a montage of the younger Zack and Keire doing tricks to Nathan Halpern and Chris Ruggiero's lovely piano score and they pull off some neat moves with a palpable sense of being in their element. But Keire snaps his board during one flip and a close-up reveals that he has written on it, `This Device Cures Heartache.'

Advancing a few years, Zack and Nina are parents and keep arguing over who should look after baby Elliot. He has found a job with erratic hours. But, as Nina makes much more money as a waitress, she feels entitled to the odd night out with her friends and, even though Zack dotes on his son, he feels stir crazy and picks a fight with Nina the moment she gets home. However, things start to look up when a downtown gym asks Zack to build some skateboard ramps, as his carpenter father, Rory, had taught him the basics while converting his mother's roller rink into an indoor skate park. Glad to take time out from his dishwashing job, Keire helps out and Zack regrets becoming estranged from Rory after he suddenly switched from being laid-back to ultra-strict and began imposing all sorts of rules and expectations that caused him to rebel. 

Despite the change in fortunes. Nina and Zack continue to argue and Liu asks if they have ever thought about sitting down and talking things out. But Zack says `nope' with a degree of macho incredulity that explains why Nina moves out of their apartment to live with her Aunt Vickie. Keire is also finding it tough coping with Roberta's new boyfriend (whom he loathes) and Liu captures him urging his mother to end the relationship. He also recalls the day his father died and how shocked he was, even though they didn't get on. After his parents had separated, Keire had gone to live with his disciplinarian dad, but so resented being forced to take a Saturday job to help pay the bills that he had snapped and left home after punching him. 

Liu has a half-brother, Kent Abernathy, who shows him around the family home in a nice suburban street and the room in which Liu used to get walloped by their dad. Kent admits that just hearing the screams was scarring for him and Liu ventures that his torment explains why he invested so heavily in skating. He is also finding it difficult to accept that Zack and Nina are still apart, even though they clearly still have feelings for each other when they meet up for Elliot's birthday party. As Rory is also in attendance, Zack feels compelled to act out and pushes his luck while flirting with Nina, who flips him the finger before driving away in dismay at his immaturity. 

Once again, however, Liu comes to question what he witnesses when Zack's friend, Kyle, shows him a phone recording of Nina threatening to kill Zack during an argument (although we don't see the footage). When Liu confronts Nina about the incident, she insists he had been beating her and notes that Kyle hadn't bothered to record that. She says Zack threw her into a coffee table and shows Liu the scar on her eyebrow. Moreover, she also explains how Zack frequently became violent while under the influence and never apologised afterwards  Speaking openly to the camera, with composure and only the slightest sense of upset, Nina shrugs in asserting that that's the way things are in a town with above average male unemployment and other emasculating circumstances. 

Emboldened by Nina's frankness, Liu decides to interview his mother, Mengyue Bolen, who met his stepfather when he followed her home from her workplace. Clearly ill at ease in front of the camera, Mengyue swears that she knew nothing about the abuse that Liu had endured, but admits that Denis could be two-faced when he wasn't buttering her up. Liu holds his counsel, but there's little sense that he's satisfied with his mother's answers. 

Meanwhile, Zack begins complaining that he doesn't get enough time with Elliot. However, it's evident that he's drinking heavily and is still behaving like an adolescent. As a consequence, Keire has distanced himself from the gang and is now hanging out with some younger friends. They discuss seeing less of Zack and, after we hear him reveal in voiceover that his gym partner ran off without paying his bills and left him flat, another member of the group lets Liu into the apartment. The power has been cut off and there are cat and dog droppings everywhere. But there's no sign that Zack has been there in quite some time. 

Some detective work leads Liu to Denver, Colorado to find Zack working in a sandwich shop. He claims to be doing okay and has a new girlfriend, Sam. But it's clear from his interview with Liu that he's still not sure where he's going. Zack feels he's a bad influence on Elliot because Nina's family is more middle-class and mainstream in its choices. But, his bid to play the class card is trumped by Nina telling Liu that she is actively pursuing her ex for maintenance because she doesn't think it's fair that he can just duck out of his responsibilities. 

After an unspecified period of time, Zack returns to Rockford with Sam and seems content to let her pay for stuff, including a name tattoo on his wrist. He is drinking again and refusing to conform because he claims he has made his choices and shouldn't feel guilty about them. Nearby, Keire announces that he is moving out because his brother keeps stealing his cash. But he is relieved that Roberta is single again and he seems content playing with his young nephews. Liu tells Keire that he made his documentary because he saw something of himself in Keire and the way he handled his situation. He is flattered, but taken aback, as he doesn't necessarily think he's been having that tough a time. He goes to find his father John's grave. It takes some locating and Keire cries when he gets there. But he is soon skating again because it makes him feel good. 

Seeking closure in his own story, Liu interviews Mengyne again and she hopes that the film will help him move on because she thinks he needs to stop dwelling on the past. Despite still being on the defensive, however, she admits to understanding why her son would harbour resentments and wishes she could have done something to have protected him and make his youth less traumatic. 

When Liu asks Keire if he thinks Zack would hit women, he says no. But Zack reveals that, while he opposes violence, `the bitches' need slapping when they are yapping and trying to provoke. Zack confesses that he feels like a wreck and drinks to hide the fact that he knows his decisions keep making his life worse. He blames his parents for some of his problems, as they fought incessantly when he was 10-12. However, he doesn't think they messed him up. Instead, he opines that he adopted a clown persona and let it control him and then struggled to keep it up when harsh reality set in. But, even though Liu feels conflicted in the face of so much stacked evidence, he can't forget the fun-loving kid he grew up with and appears to cut his friend a little judgemental slack.  

Closing captions reveal that Nina is training to be a high school counsellor, while Zack is living with Sam and paying his way with Elliot by working as a roofing foreman. Keire has moved to Denver, where he not only found a job, but also a minor sponsorship deal with a skateboard shop. We see him doing some tricks. But, once again, he splinters his board when he gets frustrated. Lastly, Liu and Kent walked their mom down the aisle when she remarried. However, nobody looks particularly comfortable in the stiffly posed photograph to commemorate the happy day. 

It must have been a daunting task reducing footage amassed over 12 years to feature length. But the 24 year-old Liu and co-editor Joshua Altman to a magnificent job in piecing together the storylines, while also maintaining the conceit that the boyhood buddies were still in each other's Rockford pockets when they had actually drifted emotionally and physically apart. In addition to being an artistic endeavour, this is also clearly a cathartic exercise for Liu, as he decides to unleash his inner Howard Beale and confront his friends and family about the abuse they have both received and inflicted and consider the extent to which such dysfunctionalism is endemic in modern America. 

Intriguingly, while much of the damage is caused by father figures, the older mothers on view scarcely emerge scot-free in comparison with Nina, who has taken active steps to remove her child from harm's way and sought to ensure that Zack contributes financially, even though he may not yet be ready to be a role model. With this as his calling card, Liu seems set to build on his solid grounding with various Hollywood camera crews. It remains to be seen, however, whether he will be tempted back to Rockford to see how Zack and Keire are faring.

Documentarist Olivia Lichtenstein was watching Mike Myers and Beth Aala's Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (2013) when she was struck by the story of one of the fabled agent's most fondly remembered clients. After three years of research and recording, she has now put him back into the spotlight in Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don't Know Me, which is now available to view on disc or online before showing on the BBC later this year. 

Born in South Philadelphia to a mother who had endured seven miscarriages, Theodore DeReese Pendergrass was raised to be independent and childhood friends Mikido Soto, Jr. and LT Brinkley recall how fearless he was in walking to school through turfs patrolled by the vicious rivals gangs. But he was also a religious child and his 100 year-old mother Ida recalls her pride when he stood on a bench to sing `If I Could Write a Letter to Heaven' at a very early age. In interview clips and extracts from one of the 60 cassettes on which he recorded his memoirs, Pendergrass reveals that he learned how to move an audience by singing in church and it was his talent that spared him the fate of so many neighbourhood kids, as he went to the famous Uptown Theatre rather than Vietnam. 

Cousin George Mouzon confirms that Pendergrass was inspired to go into show business when he saw Jackie Wilson perform and fellow Blue Note Lloyd Parks describes how they started out harmonising on street corners. According to Questlove of The Roots, this typified the community influence on black music in the United States and Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the hit-makers from Philadelphia International Records, remember how lucky they were to find so many gifted artists at the same time. They credit Harold Melvin with finding Pendergrass and making him the voice of his combo, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes on their debut single, `I Miss You', in 1972.

Joe Tarsia, the recording engineer at Sigma Sound Studies, and broadcaster Dyana Williams remember how Melvin put himself forward as the leader of the quintet and Parks and bandmate Jerry Cummings admit they were hacked off to find themselves shunted into being backing vocalists for a named artist who wasn't actually the front man. But hits like `Don't Leave Me This Way', `The Love I Lost' and `Wake Up Everybody' taught Pendergrass that Melvin was not only hogging the limelight, but he was also squirrelling away most of the cast. So, having seen bundles of notes under his mattress in a luxury Hollywood suite when the rest of the group were in a second-rate hotel, he walked away and pianist Alfie Pollitt of the Teddy Bear Orchestra jokes that everyone called it `Break Up Everybody' because it ended an era. 

Melvin tried to persuade Gamble and Huff to drop him, but they produced his first solo single, `I Don't Love You Anymore', in 1977 and Pendergrass laughed off the death threats that Soto claims he received. He also moved in with his girlfriend-cum-manager, Taaz Lang, who helped him form the Teddy Bear Orchestra, with Sam Reed as the musical director and James Carter on drums, Robert `Wa-Wa' LeGrand on guitar, Cecil Du Valle on keyboards and Joe Kohanski on trombone. Backing vocalists Melva Story, Harriet Tharne Colder and Sherry Yvonne Wilson became Teddy's Angels, although they claimed not to have heard of him. Karen Still from the Philadanco dance troupe was also in the dark, but agreed to sign up when she heard they were going to play Carnegie Hall. 

However, while ex-girlfriend Edy Roberts states that Lang was central to Pendergrass's life, news of her murder on 14 April 1977 seemed to come as a relief to the singer, who admitted that he deeply resented a contract that gave her a large part of his income. DJ Sonny `The Mighty Burner' Hopson claims that Pendergrass had connections with the Black Mafia and Soto also feels his response to the loss of someone supposedly so close to him was disconcerting. Record promoter Linda Wills says there were lots of gangsters hanging around the Philly music scene because it was raking in the loot and crime reporter Tyree Johnson states categorically that Lang was bumped off by the Black Mafia. We hear Pendergrass deny having anything to do with the death on his tapes, but the suspicion is left to linger, even though bandmates who played at her funeral insist his emotions were genuine while singing `This One Is For You'. 

It was at this juncture that Shep Gordon offered to represent Pendergrass and not only took him of the Chitlin' Circuit (that guaranteed venues to African-American acts), but also forced him to ditch his dancers (and that's how he came to marry Karen). Following a gig at the Roxy in Los Angeles in August 1978, Gordon and co-manager Daniel Markus decided he should play `women only' shows to exploit his looks and charisma. Gamble and Huff also began writing songs like `Turn Off the Lights' that played up the sex symbol status. But, while cousin `Petey' Dent and label owner Allan Strahl smirk about the underwear that was tossed on to the stage and lovers like Yvette Ganier purr at the memory of their dalliances, Karen recalls refusing to go on the road and she didn't want to see her husband revelling in the trappings of his fame. 

She remembers him being a complex and often conflicted personality and Ida confides how he had reacted badly to meeting his father, Jesse, when he was 11, only for him to be murdered a short while later. On tape, he declares that he wanted to avoid being an absentee father and boasts of having three children in the same year by different mothers. Half-siblings Teddy, Jr. and LaDonna agree he wanted the best for them, but was so used to looking out for himself that he sometimes found sharing difficult. Trumpeter Sly Bryant and other members of the Teddy Bear Orchestra concur that Pendergrass could be egotistical and difficult. But, with five consecutive platinum albums to his credit, nobody was going to argue and friend Jesse Boseman says he was the king of the neighbourhood. 

However, Pendergrass's high profile couldn't protect him from police harassment. Ida remembers him running from a ruckus on 8th Street when he was a kid and the cops arrested him because he fitted the profile given by a robbery victim. He was taken to the Youth Study Centre and this left a deep impression on him, as he witnessed white prejudice at close quarters. Edy Roberts remembers his blue Rolls Royce being followed wherever it went and press clippings detail the arrests and confrontations that he had to put up with at the peak of his career. 

Ultimately, he left the hood and moved into a 34-room mansion, with additional revenues coming from the sale of his own range of blue jeans. Sedonia Walker of Teddy Bear Enterprises says he was a dream to promote and Gordon admits he hoped Pendergrass would become the Black Elvis. TBO percussionist Greg Moore says he would have been bigger than Michael Jackson and Prince if he had kept going and Du Valle is sure he would have had a crossover hit with Lionel Ritchie's `Lady' if things had turned out differently. But, as the only footage of Pendergrass performing the song (in London in early 1982) fades and the date 17 March 1982 appears on screen, out minds are cast back to the opening sequence of the Rolls flipping in the crash that would leave him paralysed from the waist down. 

Having dropped off Yvette Ganier, Pendergrass was taking nightclub entertainer Tenika Watson back to his place when the brakes on his new green Rolls failed on Lincoln Drive and Sonny Hopson called for help after his son had witnessed the accident. Firefighter Larry Shellenberger notes it was a dangerous spot, but Hopson and Watson remember Pendergrass being twitchy with the cops around him, as he was suing the police department for $500,000, and he begged them not to leave him alone with them. He was admitted to hospital by Dr Robert Sataloff, who explains how Pendergrass had broken his neck in the impact and Gordon and Markus reflect on the agony of having to break the news that he would never walk again.

Fading away from a poignant rendition of `All By Myself', the story resumes in the cold light of day, as the press ran scoops about Pendergrass being drunk at the wheel. Then it emerged that Watson was transgender and advertising sponsors and his record labels melted away and Gordon and Walker reveal that he quickly found himself alone and short of funds. On 26 March 1982 (his 32nd birthday), Sataloff told him how lucky he was to only be quadriplegic. But depression made rehabilitation tougher and Karen recalls him discussing suicide. However, having suffered similar injuries, psychotherapist Dan Gottlieb got in touch to offer his support and he staged a mock funeral so that he could hear how much people would miss him if he was no longer there. Moreover, Sataloff began studying his vocal style so that he could determine the extent to which he would be able to start singing again. 

By this time, CBS had decided to drop Pendergrass and Gamble and Huff were powerless to fight his cause. But Elektra signed him up and he recorded an album in 1984, with Gordon eager that songs like `In My Time' would sound like personal messages of thanks to the fans who had remained loyal. The album went gold and he appeared at Live Aid to sing `Reach Out and Touch' with Ashford and Simpson and received a tumultuous reception. Moreover, as the closing captions reveal, he recorded six more albums (four of which went gold) and Valerie Simpson avers that the light needs to keep burning brightly over his legacy. The Teddy Bear Orchestra reunites for the first time in 36 years to accompany singer Aliyah Khaylyn due duet with Pendergrass's Soul Train vocal track on `Wake Up Everybody', as we learn he campaigned for spinal injury charities up to his death on 13 January 2010. 

While more attention might have been paid to Pendergrass's music and what set him apart in the crowded R&B field, this reverential, but responsible profile cannot be faulted for presenting a warts`n'all account of the man and his myth. Making the most of the wealth of archive material, as well as Pendergrass's taped recollections and some frank talking-head contributions, Lichtenstein and editor Riaz Meer are able to delve into the darker recesses while also celebrating a glittering and, ultimately courageous career. 

Harold Melvin (who died in 1997) is initially made the villain of the piece, although the CBS suits who cancelled Pendergrass's contract might also have been named and shamed. But Lichtenstein also leads us to suppose that Pendergrass had secrets to hide. That said, she also leaves us with a few unanswered questions about the on-screen absence of his eldest daughter, Tisha, although she is probably wise to have avoided mention of the sordid legal battle for ownership of the estate between the children and Pendergrass's widow, Joan, who doesn't merit a single mention in the film and neither do the reasons for his apparently amicable divorce from Karen in 2002. Even in a sometimes frank tribute, it would seem that some things are better left unsaid.