Thursday, February 6, 2025

“DEVO”

THE STORY – In 1980, new wave band Devo score a hit with “Whip It” and gained mainstream success with their message of societal “de-evolution,” formed in response to the 1970 Kent State shootings.

THE CAST – Bob Casale, Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, Mark Mothersbaugh & Alan Myers

THE TEAM – Chris Smith (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 90 Minutes


If your only memory of the band Devo is the image of Mark Mothersbaugh, flower pot on his head, brandishing a whip to flick the clothes off of an Old West maiden, you can be forgiven. “Whip It,” the group’s surprise 1980 hit, was a staple in the early days of MTV and is likely the only song that casual music fans know of the Akron-based band. Yet, the group’s origin story, shaped by tragedy and a guiding philosophy, is far less known and provides a strong start to director Chris Smith’s new documentary profile of the band, simply called “DEVO.”

As art students at Kent State University in the late 1960s, Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis were tinkering around with the idea that the world was not evolving but devolving. It was an idea that appealed to fellow student Mothersbaugh, who brought a lightheartedness to the enterprise, only to be sobered up when four of their classmates were shot dead by National Guard troops on campus on May 4, 1970. The group decided that music would be their medium of protest, and together with Gerald’s brother Bob and Mark’s brother Bob, Devo was formed. Drummer Alan Myers later joined the group and stayed with Devo for the next decade.

Smith has structured his film as a collection of archival footage, goofy cutaways, and talking heads, the most prominent of whom are Mark and Gerald, who discuss the many influences (from a book called “Jocko Homo” to the 1932 horror film “Island of Lost Souls,” both of which feature monkey imagery prominent in the band’s early performances) that helped to shape the band. The group’s early gigs were not promising, as Devo was routinely booed off the stage of some of Akron’s diviest bars.

However, the band members made one key decision that led to their first big break: in a pre-MTV era, they decided to create music videos from many of their songs. After a compilation of their videos was the surprise winner at an Ann Arbor film festival, the industry took notice, including no less than David Bowie, who arranged to get the band a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. From there, the more familiar elements of the band’s history came into play: the surprise success of “Whip It,” the new commercial pressures on the band, its eventual breakup, and Mothersbaugh’s success as a film composer, scoring films as diverse as “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “The LEGO Movie,” and “Cocaine Bear.”

Several cringe-worthy clips that Smith chooses to include are priceless, including Devo interacting with such white-bread talk show hosts as Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, who clearly don’t know what to make of this weird quintet. Mothersbaugh, in particular, has some mischievous fun with the band’s media blitz, and there’s a joyous feeling among the band members while they are riding high as they find themselves at the pinnacle of show business, probably the last place they expected to be.

But, as anyone who has seen even one episode of Vh1’s “Behind the Music” knows, after the rise comes the fall, and it’s those booze, drugs, and sex scenes for which “BTM” fans live. As you might suspect, that does not happen here because that’s not who these guys are. As their show business star is falling, they just carry on, doing what they’ve been doing. The nature of their confessionals, however, does begin to change, with Mark and Gerald becoming defensive and puzzled over why their fans couldn’t get what they were trying to do. Here’s where Smith’s decision to limit the talking heads to just the band members runs the film aground. Though we’re not usually fans of the overuse of so-called experts in show business docs, it would have been helpful in this case to get an outside observer’s perspective on why the band suddenly fell out of favor.

It’s a shame, really, because Devo as a band brought such a joyous sense of anarchy to the music scene with the kind of playfulness that few groups have been able to replicate since. More importantly, they were a band grounded in a guiding philosophical idea, practically unprecedented for a musical act, and one that pushed the boundaries of what a rock group could say. They deserve a film that pushes those exact boundaries, and while “DEVO” provides an entertaining 90 minutes, it needed Smith to break out of the confines of the tropes of music docs and bring that same spirit of anarchy to his filmmaking as well.

THE RECAP

THE GOOD - Chris Smith's profile of the boundary-pushing band provides fascinating footage and first-person commentary of the group's origin story, which was shaped by tragedy and a unique guiding philosophy.

THE BAD - It seems wedded to the tropes of your standard music doc, missing the spirit of anarchy that his subjects embodied so memorably in the music world.

THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - None

THE FINAL SCORE - 5/10

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Tom O'Brien
Tom O'Brienhttps://nextbestpicture.com
Palm Springs Blogger and Awards lover. Editor at Exact Change & contributing writer for Gold Derby.

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<b>THE GOOD - </b>Chris Smith's profile of the boundary-pushing band provides fascinating footage and first-person commentary of the group's origin story, which was shaped by tragedy and a unique guiding philosophy.<br><br> <b>THE BAD - </b>It seems wedded to the tropes of your standard music doc, missing the spirit of anarchy that his subjects embodied so memorably in the music world.<br><br> <b>THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - </b>None<br><br> <b>THE FINAL SCORE - </b>5/10<br><br>"DEVO"