:
Klaus Nomi,
Klaus Nomi,
Ann Magnuson,
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:
Andrew Horn,
Andrew Horn
see all cast/crew...
: Not Rated
: Palm Pictures
: Documentary, Foreign, Music, Biographies, Germany, Documentary, Art, Music
: 96 min.
: English
see additional details...
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Andrew Horn (co-writer/producer of East Side Story) directs the documentary The Nomi Song, a portrait of late German artist Klaus Nomi. Born in Bavaria during the '40s, Nomi was a trained opera singer who became an underground cult figure in New York City during the '70s. Fancifully dressed in black-and-white costumes, Nomi performed unique cabaret shows and earned a small but loyal fan base. He made recordings, appeared in films, and even sang for commercials. He was building up a career in Europe when he fell ill. He died in 1983 of an AIDS-related infection. The documentary includes interviews with actress Ann Magnuson, art director Page Wood, and photographer Anthony Scibelli. The Nomi Song won the Teddy Award at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
 Outrate.net editor Mark Adnum previews The Nomi Song, a new documentary that "shows us a most amazing performer who, in the grand show-business tradition, led a quasi-fictional life." Full article >>
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| Strangely Compelling like the man himself
by kinaidos
March 13, 2006 - 1:44 PM PST
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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The documentary does a good job of giving you a sense of the anarchy that characterized the New York new wave scene. It also does a good job of giving you a sense of just how quick Nomi's career went by. In that regard it's a notch above most artist/musician documentary bio films.
I also find it a bit more engaging than most because of the way in which the interviewees are a bit more emotionally engaged in the story than is usually the case.
I found one bit paritcularly fun, the account of Nomi's opening for Twisted Sister in NJ. The bit gives you a good sense of just how disconnected the NYC arts scene can be from the rest of the world. I only wish they had footage of the event itself.
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| This review applies to DVD and NOT the movie --
by GGoodsell
December 31, 2005 - 4:42 PM PST
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4 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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Right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh would regularly pull out Klaus Nomis version of "You Don't Own Me" as bumper music for his "gay update." Limbaugh would taunt Nomi, saying he was now little more than a piece of patchwork on the AIDS quilt for all of his operatic bravado. Limbaugh would go on to have his own issues with drug addiction along with his own dwindling popularity. In the meantime, people who would otherwise never hear of Nomi would have their curiosity piqued and search out his surviving recordings, winning countless new fans in the process.
Sporting an aerodynamic hairstyle, black-and-white Kabuki makeup and Art deco spacesuits, Klaus Nomi nee Sperber was denounced by New York Rocker magazine as a "freak of the weak." Even then, his harshest detractors couldn't detract from his musical talent. Nomi was a classically trained opera singer who could wrap his vocal cords around classical arias and the stalest pop music chestnuts, such as "Falling in Love Again" and "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead." More than twenty years after his death from AIDS, Nomi's surviving recordings continue to sell steadily, mostly among younger people who weren't even born before his life and times among the New York new wave scene. THE NOMI SONG tries to fill in the blanks. Who was this elfin creature who sang along with David Bowie on "Saturday Night Live" all those years ago? I was one of the few people who saw this film theatrically and at the time, it was a moderately entertaining look at the late Seventies, early Eighties new wave rock scene. Sadly, it told us little, if anything among Nomi. This makes this DVD an essential purchase! It is through the staggering wealth of supplemental materials on this disc that we get to know more about Nomi, the man and the artist. In the documentary itself, Nomi sideman and musician Kristian Hoffman came off as a bitter burnout, resentful of Klaus' limited success. It is through his extended interview on this disc we learn that Nomi himself was no day at the beach, temperamental, petulant and demanding. Longtime admirers of his work will want, and deserve to hear about this side of Nomi. Also included are extended concert performances of never before released songs and an Easter egg for Nomi's recipe for lime tart (he was after all, a pastry chef by profession). Still unexplained is Joey Arias' blunt refusal to be interviewed for the project, in spite of his participation in assembling the archival materials. Anyone with a passing interest in the new music scene, its origins before its homogenization as "alternative music" must get this DVD!
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| An Alien, of Sorts
by talltale
June 18, 2005 - 8:59 AM PDT
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5 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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A surprising documentary that works better than I'd have thought possible, THE NOMI SONG looks back on the short career of a bizarre fellow known as Klaus Nomi from the "new wave" world of downtown New York in the late 70s. He became popular in Europe (where "mainstream" and "arty" are not so far apart), but his fame in America spread only marginally to places where the avant-garde had a following (large cities, college campuses). I lived in NYC during this same time, writing plays and even getting one of them produced. I followed art and culture pretty closely, but I don't remember knowing anything about Nomi until now. Still, as the writer/director Andrew Horn proves so well, it's never too late.
Horn frames the story using that silly and wonderful old sci-fi film from the 50s "It Came from Outer Space," as though to posit that Klaus was something of an alien in our world. Other interviewees pick up this idea and run with it, and the closing quote (from Richard Hell) pretty much sums up the era of new wave New York, the east village and the goal of many of its inhabitants. The meat of the film gives us Nomi (as much as possible, since he appears a very closed person), his style and music via a lot of found footage used, for my money, much more artfully and intelligently than Jonathan Caouette uses his in the showy "Tarnation."
While this elliptical movie does not go in for much psychology, there are enough clues scattered about that you'll form your own opinion of why some of us, so desperate to be "recognized," hardly know how to make that recognition part of an autonomous life, once we've achieved it. Nomi had talent, no doubt about it; he and this movie go beyond mere camp. There's friendship here, along with success, betrayal, fear and death--plus a wrap-up that's both sad and sweet. "The Nomi Song" is strangely enriching. Don't miss it. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.40)
48 Votes
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