‘Billy Joel: And So It Goes’ follows eight decades in the life of the Piano Man
The nearly five-hour HBO treatment is a fairly straightforward boomer rock doc that briefly touches greatness.
For most of its running time, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin’s two-part, nearly five-hour exploration of the life and career of the rock god, is about what you would expect. The film debuts its first part on Friday, July 18, and the second a week later.
Yes, it begins with the opening piano notes of “New York State of Mind,” before zooming in on a boat called the Alexa. From there, it explores Joel’s childhood, his early career, his hit songs, and his career-long fight for respectability. It also explores rougher waters, including Joel’s three divorces, the time he had nearly all of his money stolen, and his battle with alcoholism.
Throughout, we get to hear pretty much all of those classic songs, and the stories behind them, although most of the latter won’t be much of a mystery to anyone who’s seen Billy in concert, where he’s been known to tell concert audiences exactly which ex-wife inspired which songs.
Yes, Joel has been married four times, and the documentary got all four of the wives to participate, which has to be a record for nonfiction films. And yes, that includes ex-wife #2, 1980s supermodel Christie Brinkley. I’m reminded of an old joke from one of Howard Stern’s books- “When you look at your wife, Christie Brinkley, do you thank your mother for making you take piano lessons?”
I will admit that I’m a lifelong Billy Joel fan. I’ve seen him in concert in, I believe, four different decades. I know every word of just about every song that’s featured in the film. And on that level, just hearing those songs and the stories behind them is a lot of fun- especially his magnum opus, “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant”:
But there’s one thing in the film that takes it into another gear altogether: In the opening half hour of the second half, Joel tells the story of his grandparents escaping the Nazis, while his father was a child, and his eventual estrangement from his father, which lasted most of Joel’s childhood. Joel’s father even moved back to Europe — something not a lot of survivors of the Nazis did — and inspired Joel’s song “Vienna.”
Joel is someone who hasn’t spoken a lot about his Jewish roots over the years. He has, I believe, told the story of his father to biographers. But he hasn’t told it on camera, and I found it absolutely jarring, especially the way it introduces his relationship with his father as a skeleton key for other aspects of his life. And a chip on his shoulder has certainly stayed with him to this day, as reflected in various feuds with producers and band members.
The rest doesn’t get far beyond the standard boomer rock doc stuff, with Joel reflecting while seated at a piano. Yes, he remains angry at certain bad reviews from decades ago, and about the time his business manager — the brother of ex-wife #1 — stole tens of millions from him.Although Joel, unlike, say, ex-athletes who get ripped off, enjoyed the luxury of continuing to go on tour and do residencies and make more money.
He’s also still perturbed at false reports, during the depths of his alcoholism in the 2010s, that he got DUIs (he may have crashed his car multiple times, but no, he wasn’t ever arrested.)
Joel has had a unique career, in that he’s been around for about 50 years, but all of his songs and albums were written in the first half of it. In 1993, he for the most part stopped writing new songs or releasing albums, but has continued to tour ever since.
And So It Goes premiered at Tribeca, shortly after Joel announced he was suffering from a rare brain disorder, and would cancel all scheduled performances. That raised the sad possibility that the documentary would double as an epitaph, although reports this week say the singer is “healing.”
If you’re a Billy Joel fan, you’re likely going to like this, although the only time it truly reaches filmmaking greatness is in that opening section of Part 2.