A good problem I suppose to have is that at 53 minutes, this is much too brief a look at a part of the process in Theatre that gets underappreciated as far as when the cast of a production makes the recording for the album to go out into the world - in other words, as one of the cast briefly describes in one of the handful of interviews here (being Pennebaker its 98% Verite and 2% usual doc), when you're dancing and singing you do it once and it goes by so fast, where on record it's difficult sometimes to get that same energy up in live performance. It is worth noting this was a Pilot for a proposed series of documentaries showing the creative process with Broadway shows, and as happens sometimes the exec who green-lit the first one moved on and it was cancelled, so we all are lucky this exists as is at all.
What makes this so remarkable and indelible is precisely that you don't have to have seen the actual show of Company to get the gist (I certainly hadn't, my extent of familiarity was with the Documentary Now sketch and I'm sure many my age who aren't Theater Kids will be the same way coming to this after Sondheim's passing and may his life be a blessing etc). You can pick up quickly this is a biting black comedy about marriage and relationships, what it means to become married or about to get married or not get married (the one song where the woman is talking like a guy at an auction is incredible, no one you or I know could do that), and even when there's sincerity to the music and lyrics there's this razor's edge that Sondheim is dealing with - West Side Story in many places was the same- where the earnestness could go too far but is saved by the knowingness of how people act and relate in a society, and you must have humor with the heart.
And while it's thrilling to see the performers do these songs, in what may be the first or the tenth of many takes and this process is buoyed by Sondheim and the playwright and record producer finding what works on an equal footing with what doesn't or what needs so tweaks (like oh no you were in A and not F for this time dang), I love everything in the control booth and wonder if Pennebaker had even more footage of that and if so there could be a longer cut. Again his great tact as a filmmaker, like the contemporaneous Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin, was to manage to get so much on record without making anyone self conscious or notice the camera was there (or if they are aware of it they don't make it so known that it takes us out of it).
But then we get to Elaine Stritch and that last ten minutes or so when she tries to do the "Lunch" number and it's hard not to feel your heart kind of break... more for the creatives than for her who watch a take that even if we don't know it ahead of time that she has to go again can feel that she must since this is a take at the end of a long day (as a filmmaker I've been there, believe me, especially the frustration of wanting to make it work so badly).
The producer is up front with what's not working (the word facile or flaccid comes up I forget which), and meanwhile Stephen in that turtleneck and on the edge of two sides of ecstasy or chronic dissatisfaction buries his face in his arm in grief over this take. And it's not like he wants it that way but rather its the theme throughout throughout documentary: how do you not only get something to be Good but to go *Beyond* it and capture that spontaneity of a theatrical performance?
This film will always be a tribute to the satirical wit and musical glory that was Sondheim, but also how strong Pennebaker could be in his own element (again see how simply he or his cameraman move around the one singer from behind in that one performance, beautiful). Highlights include: "Getting Married Today" (with that ten words every two seconds part), "Another Hundred People" "Being Alive" (ok I get Marriage Story now), and "Barcelona.
