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If the catchcry 'fun, chaos and sleaze' announced the raucous arrival of the New York Dolls in 1972, then the title of their second album, [Too Much Too Soon], was a fitting epitaph to their demise. A combination of Iggy Pop's anarchy, Lou Reed's streetwise brutality and more than a pinch of Bowie's camp, they were the kings (queens') of punked-up excess who crashed and burned quicker than a two-chord power riff.
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year,[ New York Doll] is the captivating story of the rise, fall and resurrection of this seminal band. But as the title suggests, it is really a portrait of one man, bassist Arthur 'Killer' Kane. Once the Dolls imploded, Kane descended further into drug-induced crisis (as well as from a second-storey window) before being saved by a hand-delivered mail-order book: [The Book of Mormon]. Documentarian and fellow Mormon Greg Whiteley picks up Kane's story in 2004, by which time he is working in a genealogy library at his local Mormon Temple. But while God is a saviour of one kind for Kane, so is Brit singer and Renaissance man Morrissey, who was behind the Dolls' reunion for London's Meltdown Festival.
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D Greg Whiteley P Ed Cunningham, Seth Lewis Gordon WS Moviehouse Entertainment TD video/col, B&W/2005/77mins
Greg Whiteley was born in Provo, USA. [New York Doll] (MIFF 05) is his first feature documentary.