‘Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music’ Review: Wish You Were There

The author and performer Taylor Mac spent the primary half of the 2010s creating an epic venture, “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” that coated 240 years’ value of American historical past. Mac would carry out massive excerpts at concert events, then on Oct. 8-9, 2016, did the entire caboodle as an ultramarathon of 246 songs. The present took over St. Ann’s Warehouse, in Brooklyn, in a 24-hour-long “radical faerie realness ritual sacrifice” that amounted to a transcendent inventive and political gesture. (Full disclosure: I used to be there.)

Now, an HBO documentary by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (“The Celluloid Closet,” “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice”) gives a essentially abridged take a look at Mac’s towering achievement, which showcased an unimaginable vary as an interpreter, a theatrical gusto and a mischievous, usually biting humor. Key collaborators just like the costume designer Machine Dazzle and the make-up artist Anastasia Durasova additionally clarify what went into their many painstakingly intricate creations.

But there’s some ambiguity: The movie is structured as if it had been documenting the St. Ann’s occurring, together with time stamps, however among the efficiency footage truly is from Los Angeles. The doc additionally doesn’t illuminate how Mac handled the marathon’s grueling bodily calls for, or describe the surreal atmosphere that set over the Brooklyn venue because the hours ticked by and sleep deprivation set in. We do see among the viewers participation, which was an integral a part of the present, however we don’t hear from attendees. It’s a loss, as a result of the occasion was, in essence, in regards to the making of neighborhood by the ages but in addition by at some point and evening.

Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Max.