I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Named after the first song on alternative country band Wilco's latest effort Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is not, as was originally intended, a traditional music documentary. Photographer and commercial director Sam Jones approaches the band during a tumultuous time. Just the day before Jones started using his congenially black and white film stocks, the band's singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy called to inform him that drummer Ken Coomer had been fired and replaced by Glenn Kotche. That was not the only tension. Tweedy and engineer Jay Bennett weren't getting along all that well - which resulted in Tweedy taking a short break from the process. To add to the frustration, when the album was actually completed (and mixed by Jim O'Rourke of Sonic Youth), the people at Reprise Records insisted on substantial changes in the material. As a result of this, Wilco bought the studio tapes for $50 000, left the label for touring, and streamed the album from the band's website. More than one year later Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is by critical consensus one of 2002's most important rock albums. As a piece of direct cinema, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart owes as much to the Maysles Brothers legendary Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter (1970), as to being lucky when it comes to unexpected controversies. NIKLAS ERIKSSON

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Wilco etc.: Producent
Peter Abraham, Sam Jones: Foto
Sam Jones: Musik
Wilco: Talat språk
English