The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

The Bee Gees were breaking ground long before The Beatles exploded. Their genres evolved from soul, to folk, pop rock, to disco to classic adult contemporary. Their musical influence had an extraordinary effect in four great decades. They are icons. How they craftily maneuvered in the world of music is beyond genius. They are songwriters who had the ear for the perfect rhythm. They were gifted singers as well. They made the biggest songs in an imperfect world.

I've always loved the bee gees, I'm an age where I remember all that disco sucks nonsense, they were so much more than the Saturday night fever album, although I did love that album. The way the brother's gibb sang together, no one can top them, they harmonize so beautifully, certain songs can send chills up your spine. I've watched this twice now, I'm sure I'll watch it many more.

"The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" (2020 release; 111 min.) is a documentary about the famed pop trio. As the documentary opens, we hear the disco-charging "Stayin' Alive" over the opening titles and then go straight into a live concert from 1979 in Oakland. We flash forward to "Miami 2019" as Barry Gibb, the only surviving member of the Gibb brothers, rues "My immediate family is gone". From there we go back in time to when the Gibb brothers were just young lads growing up on the Isle of Man before the family relocates to Australia. It is there that the lads find their first taste of success... At this point we are 10 min. into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest project from Frank Marshall, best known for his production work (including for Steven Spielberg), but here he directs what is clearly a labor of love about the long and complicated history of the Gibb brothers. If you ask anyone today what the Bee Gees stand for, almost certainly the answer will be "disco" or "Saturday Night Fever". And of course they were that, very much so. But as this delicious documentary reminds us, they were more than that, in fact so much more than that. It feels like the Bee Gees had, like cats, nine lives, or at least four or five (pre-SNF, the 1975-1981 disco era, the immediate post-disco era, and the latter days). Along the way we get treated to a bunch of archive footage that certainly I had never seen before, and of course also the 'talking heads', including Justin Timberlake, Eric Clapton and most interestingly Nick Jonas and Noel Gallagher, both of whom also performed as brothers in a band. There are some heavy duty moments in this documentary when we are reminded of the deaths of younger brother Andy Gibb (for whom the Bee Gees wrote a bunch of songs), and then twins Maurice (in 2003) and Robin (2012). But in the end the music prevails, and on that count, it still feels to me that the Bee Gees are underappreciated, even though they are rightly so in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I love their disco stuff, but I equally love their late 60s/early 70s pre-disco output (think: "Massachusetts", "World", "I Started a Joke", "Words", etc.). Such great songs.

"The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" premiered this weekend on HBO and is now available on HBO on Demand and other streaming services. If you have any interest in the history of rock music, or are simply a fan of the Bee Gees, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

... is what I think of when Barry Gibb is interviewed for this documentary in present day. Obviously missing his brothers badly, probably never anticipating being the last one standing since he is the oldest, but don't think this rockumentary is a downer because it is not.

Before this I had only cursory knowledge of the Bee Gees. I remembered their ballads from the 60s and early 70s when I was a kid and their disco music from when I was in college and the fact that they all seemed to suddenly disappear, and of course I remembered the tragedy of Andy Gibb, but the story is much more complex than that. And they never actually "disappeared" from music at all.

This documentary follows their rise to fame in the 60s, even before the Beatles hit the scene ("That's what WE are trying to be!" says one of the brothers) through a short breakup to a return to recording when they think that maybe their time is past in the early 70s, then a relocation to Miami in 1975 and the origins of the "Miami sound" and everything that came after.

I particularly loved that much of the documentary was about the Bee Gees' creative process, both with writing and recording. It really helps with the central thesis that the Bee Gees saw themselves first as song writers and as performers second. At the end, Barry Gibb says that he thinks he and his brothers accomplished what they set out to do, and that he hopes that their music lives on.

If you are looking for some personal gossipy tell all piece, this is not that. If you want to know about the music of the Bee Gees and as much about their lives as is necessary to discuss that, then I think you will enjoy this documentary. And, yes, you do get quite a few scenes of their live performances from throughout their careers that you get a real feeling for the excitement of their fan base. Highly recommended.

What a wonderful documentary. The Gibb Brothers have provided some of the soundtrack of my life. This film centers their place in modern music history. They belong at the pinnacle. If you don't know their music, this provides an invaluable roadmap. It's all here. You won't be disappointed. What a deep pleasure.