The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [11]
Deliberate media manipulation, right? Two questions come to me. Why did you pick that phrase over others? And do you think it’s pretty easy to manipulate the media?
I don’t know if it’s easy, because it can turn on you. But, well, that was just one reporter, y’see. I was just answering his question. Since then a lot of people have picked up on it—that phrase—and have made it pretty heavy, but actually I was just . . . I knew the guy would use it and I knew what the picture painted would be. I knew that a few key phrases is all anyone ever retains from an article. So I wanted a phrase that would stick in the mind.
I do think it’s more difficult to manipulate TV and film than it is the press. The press has been easy for me in a way, because I am biased toward writing and I understand writing and the mind of writers; we are dealing with the same medium, the printed word. So that’s been fairly easy. But television and films are much more difficult and I’m still learning. Each time I go on TV I get a little more relaxed and a little more able to communicate openly, and control it. It’s an interesting process.
Does this explain your fascination with film?
I’m interested in film because to me it’s the closest approximation in art that we have to the actual flow of consciousness, in both dream life and in the everyday perception of the world.
You’re getting more involved in film all the time . . .
Yeah, but there’s only one we’ve completed—Feast of Friends, which was made at the end of a spiritual, cultural renaissance that’s just about over now.
How much in ‘Feast of Friends’ is you? Aside from what we see. The technical aspects . . . putting the film together . . . how much of that did you do?
In conception, it was a very small crew following us around for three or four months in a lot of concerts, culminating in the Hollywood Bowl [summer 1968]. Then the group went to Europe on a short tour and while we were there, Frank Lisciandro and Paul Ferrara, the editor and photographer, started hacking it together. We returned, we looked at the rough cut and showed it to people. No one liked it very much and a lot of people were ready to abandon the project. I was almost of that opinion, too. But Frank and Paul wanted a chance so we let them. I worked with them in the refining of the editing and I made some good suggestions on the form it should take and after a few more . . . after paring down the material, I think we got an interesting film out of it.
I think it’s a timeless film. I’m glad it exists. I want to look at it through the years from time to time and look back on what we were doing. Y’know, it’s interesting . . . the first time I saw the film I was rather taken aback, because being onstage and one of the central figures in the film, I only saw it from my point of view. Then, to see a series of events that I thought I had some control over . . . to see it as it actually was . . . I suddenly realized in a way I was just a puppet of a lot of forces I only vaguely understood. It was kind of shocking.
I think of one part of the film, a performance sequence, in which you’re flat on your back, still singing . . . which represents how theatrical you’ve gotten in your performance. How did that theatricality develop? Was it a conscious thing?
I think in a club, histrionics would be a little out of place, because the room is too small and it would be a little grotesque. In a large concert situation, I think it’s just . . . necessary, because it gets to be more than just a musical event. It turns into a little bit of a spectacle. And it’s different every time. I don’t think any one performance is like any other. I can’t answer that very well. I’m not too conscious of what’s happening. I don’t like to be too objective about it. I like to let each thing happen—direct it a little consciously, maybe, but just kind of follow the vibrations I get in each particular circumstance.