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new york doll
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.
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.