Scott Walker - 30 Century Man

Born Stateside as Scott Engel, the man who was to become Scott Walker was already making records before his teens. It was only when he came to Britain in the Sixties with the Walker Brothers (not Walkers, not brothers) that he gained notoriety, first as a bass player, then as a singer. His deep baritone voice made songs like The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore so successful, backed up by the grand orchestral sound from the strings and brass the boys couldn't get back home. It turns out that these two elements were to form the spine of Scott Walker's work as he went further and further from the kind of music your mother likes to the kind of sounds your mother and many others would refuse to even recognise as music.

Leap-frogging musical influences from Jacques Brel to Stockhausen, Walker's songwriting style slowly went from the mundane to the ridiculous, as his voice became deeper and more tremulous. He clearly wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, and for him that meant being seen to be part of the avant-garde, creating important work. That's a purpose for which this film gladly steps in to help achieve, perhaps too gladly.

One thing that you notice first about this film is David Bowie. Credited as executive producer, he obviously has an interest in Walker's work, and has done for some time. In fact, listening to Scott 4, heralded as Walker's masterpiece in this film, it's clear Bowie was influenced by it in his Eighties China Girl phase, his vocal performance almost an impression. This seal of approval by the godfather of pop is high praise indeed, and is part of this film's effort to guarantee Walker's reassessment as on a par with the visionaries he admires. One of the film's main strategies to achieve this is to make clear from the outset that Walker is a mysterious recluse to the point of it being a legend. Stories get passed around about him, one of which is, Jarvis Cocker informs us, that he will sometimes just sit in pubs and watch people play darts. Rrrright. It is at moments like this in 30 Century Man when doubts may creep into your head as to how even-handed this documentary's going to be. By the time the end credits begin with a very special thank you to Walker's managers, you'll know the answer's 'not very'.

What's going on is the usual trick pulled off by today's spate of music documentaries: to make sure people get into a musician they may not have heard of, get in loads of stars they've definitely heard of to give testimony. So we have Bowie and Cocker, as well as Eno, Radiohead and Goldfrapp, all saying how they discovered Walker's stuff and how 'different' it is. The only problem is that 30 Century Man fails to convince us the same way The Devil and Daniel Johnson or You're Gonna Miss Me (the fantastic film about 13th Floor Elevators' lead singer Roky Erickson) do. This is partly because there is no room for criticism of his music or character, giving in completely to the image Walker perpetuates. What is screaming out from his songs is the fact they are so love-it-or-hate-it that they demand you buy into what Walker is selling us completely, without questioning his rather odd desire to craft his persona. That this film toes the line so faithfully means it might as well have been directed by him, but this also means that it carries the same artificial quality that is the most interesting thing about his character. There are moments that are unintentionally funny, from the soundclip of his pretentious and short-lived BBC show introducing songs about sado-masochism, to one point where Bowie cracks up listening to a clip of Walker's stuff, his mocking impression just making it under the radar into the final cut.

Another of Walker's hip idols he felt obliged to let the masses know about was Sartre, but it's probably Sartre who reveals most about Walker. Sartre describes his 'bad faith' definition of human self-deception with the analogy of the waiter: he isn't really a waiter, but a man who performs all the outward gestures of the typical or ideal waiter for everyone to see, but without actually being it in his core. Sartre cottoned on to the type of character that this film unwittingly exposes: a reclusive genius who wants everyone to know how much he doesn't want to be known. For that reason, the film is engaging. As for his music, it's best left to you to decide for yourself.