Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity

Having trouble watching this documentary, although it is very interesting to me. Editing is fast footage cuts, that don't give its subject enough breathing room, and as a result makes for some chaotic viewing. Also for a 4k HDR video, you'd think they'd touch up a bit all the archival footage they've interspersed within, but instead you get a mess of UHD modern footage plus a hodge-podge of VHS-quality, or ultra-grainy old material. Messy experience overall, couldn't muster to watch more than half an episode. Which is a shame, I was looking forward to learn more about Wayne Shorter - his life and times.

This film touched me in unexpected ways. I was laughing, crying, grooving, all of the above. I heard on a radio interview that the director was a personal friend of Wayne, I think that makes a big difference in this film because of how comfortable Wayne is to reveal himself. It isn't all factual, there's a lot of heart in this film.

I'd heard Wayne's music before, but it was so interesting to realize how much influence he had on some of the biggest hits in Jazz history. Beyond just his work, Wayne is such a profound poet with the way he speaks, as well as quietly funny. You really get the sense of his life unfolding before him. Even as a non-musician myself, I found myself relating to him or finding his wisdom about the world entirely applicable. He was truly a visionary in that he followed no rules.

The filmmaker does a remarkable job translating his personality. It's clear she understood him on a deep level and has found a way to make his mind accessible to us all. The film operates very much like a patchwork of people, images, and sound, almost like a memory with allusions to afro-futurism and classic cinema and literature. This film was so much more than I expected. Its more than just a music doc, it's a story about the journey of a soul.

Excellent documentary! I love Wayne Shorter and his music but I didn't know so much about his life story, which is very compelling to watch. I loved all the interviews and footage of Wayne.

The first episode is a great picture of jazz history and black culture of the time. I love jazz and jazz fusion and Wayne was such a pioneer and wrote so many powerful songs. The work he did was second to none.

I also liked it that this was in three parts, with three distinct eras. It was great seeing the musicians and pop culture icons give their sides of the stories.

I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys music and history, even if not a jazz fan. It's a documentary for everyone.

It's hard to imagine a more fitting marriage of form and subject - the five-act arc of Mr Shorter's peerless musical career, and the rare abundance of contemporary footage, both uniquely suited to the mini-series format. Could that runtime have been better employed? Doubtlessly - in the early chapters especially, there's a distracting overreliance on interstellar animations, stock footage and earnest reconstructions. As the film constantly reminds us, Wayne's music paints its own pictures in the mind - so let us wonder, and wander, alone occasionally.

Coupled with an (often) familiar cast of talking heads, a lot of the mammoth runtime is sucked up in worthy reverence, and more studious (read: nerdier) jazz fans might find themselves learning nothing new. Little that wasn't covered in Michelle Mercer's (definitive?) biography Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter. The beauty then, is in the form - in what the camera can bring - which is why the third, final, chapter is such a joy; overflowing with candid footage of the ageing, sage-like, legendary Wayne hunched over manuscript paper on his cluttered desk, holding court in front of adoring students - and onstage. I've long believed that the Wayne Shorter Quartet of 2000-2017 is the most thrillingly intuitive group working in decades, possibly ever - and every second of music and insight is a joy to behold (even if it could have been mixed rather louder!) Beneath the spellbound platitudes, mind, there's little to no technical contextualization of what made the group so thrilling - nothing approaching the insight of the 2013 documentary Language of the Unknown, freely available on YouTube.

It's too easy, too tempting to crown Zero Gravity the greatest project of its kind - a temptation that says more about the length of Shorter's shadow, the wealth of living contemporaries, and, yes, the unique conditions of a home-streaming runtime. But perhaps it says more about the seventh art's recent (dis)interest in America's only home-grown art-form, which has favoured dramatic mythmaking imagery over the insight of the documentary form. Let's hope Zero Gravity's success paves the way for more serious celluloid studies to come.

I have just finished binging all three "portals" and I am compelled to immediately post this review, shouting from the highest mountain top, that this film is quite simply one of the best, if not, the best documentaries I have ever seen! It transcends the genre taking us on a mystical journey under the surface of the known while at the same time walking us through the extraordinary life of Wayne Shorter where we learn about the boy, the man and the artist who grew to become one of the great geniuses in music of the 20th century and well into this current century. Dorsay Alavi is an extraordinary filmmaker! Her careful and deliberate use of animation, visual effects and masterful editing all come together to deliver a film that matches Wayne Shorter's genius in every possible way. This is one of those rare films that I will surely rewatch annually for years to come.