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Considering how huge they once were—and for more than a minute, too—it seems hard to believe that The Police are largely overlooked these days, known mostly as the antecedent to Sting's more "mature," middle-road solo career. But before U2 and R.E.M., The Police brought New Wave to the mainstream, giving it an air of acceptance and creative respectability which no one else could. That you rarely hear their songs in retro-kitschy '80s mixes is a tribute to the universality of their pan-cultural sound. Even their most over-played multi-platinum hits sound as contemporary today as they did 25 years ago.
Perhaps that's because none of the three immensely talented members of the band were ever really part of the D-I-Y generation, drummer Stewart Copeland coming from prog rockers Curved Air, bassist Sting having a jazz background, and guitarist Andy Summers being a veteran with roots all the way back to '60s Mod favorites Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. Nevertheless, The Police did build themselves up from the bottom, with the invaluable help of Copeland's older brothers Miles and Ian (R.I.P.), later to run the essential I.R.S. record label and F.B.I. booking agency respectively.
In these post-digital days, it's common for every band to film themselves ad infinitum. But in an era when video was still relatively unwieldy, Copeland bought a super-8 film camera to document the band's world (and just have fun). What makes his case particularly unusual is that he maintained the hobby over most of the life of the band, leading us to this unusual, post-hoc documentary.
Taken from over 50 hours of raw celluloid, Everyone Stares is a fun, loosely formatted, scrapbook of a story, starting at a time when "most of our gigs are cancellations from other bands," as Copeland's narration informs. Showing the fan frenzy "from the inside out," Copeland notes that the group's first success was as a kind of "boy band," pinups for the eager but awkward groupies we see chanting for Sting outside English gigs. From there, cut to images of America, tour boredom/silliness, bits of improvised skits (Andy Summers apparently had dramatic pretensions, while Sting of course was actually making real movies), autograph signings, roadies jamming, photo sessions, video shoots, stacks of cash being counted, and overall being serious about the music, and little else. "We laugh way more than we shout," Copeland notes.
He documents all aspects of pop music marketing, from the record label execs to radio jocks, to his ebullient, hard-working brothers, as the band moves from opening festivals to headlining them, to "we've got more crew than I can name" and "this drum set is getting bigger every day... why not, I don't have to set it up!" In 1981, "life becomes a Duran Duran video," says Copeland, as he treats us to his shots of Rio, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Hawaiian holidays with girls in bikinis, and recording the breakthrough third album Zenyatta Mondatta in Monserrat. "Pretty soon the real world people live in seems like wind rushing past the car window," he notes as they start touring by private plane, start looking more tired, and start fomenting tension and resentment between themselves. As the scenery gets better and better, "Every record we make, the stakes go up... we start not supporting each other, it's getting lonely in this band." Occasionally, we even get music; short bursts of gigs and TV appearances (amid a score featuring myriad remixes) remind us how powerful live The Police were. Perhaps the coolest moment is when Copeland turns and talks to the camera mid-song during a stadium show.
Honest and accurate in its mix of the exotic with the banal, Everyone Stares is of course, far from perfect, though. While its lack of structure (except chronology) is acceptable, Copeland tells his story half in rushed, arch, narration and half in intermittent subtitles. The DVD package includes outtakes which seem to have been left out only by random chance, "shards" of live footage, and further audio commentary by Summers and Copeland (wait, isn't that what the narration is supposed to be?). In short, Copeland's uneven opus could have been greatly improved by an experienced story editor and/or more ancillary visuals, especially when his own footage trails off towards the end.
Resting at the aesthetic midpoint between This Is Spinal Tap and Radiohead's Meeting People Is Easy in the rock film spectrum, Everyone Stares is a unique document of a unique band, and even if it's only interesting once around, we're lucky to have it.
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