Josh Reviews In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon is an expansive, immersive documentary by Alex Gibney (the master documentarian behind works such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room).  This lengthy documentary (it originally was released in two parts; taken together it runs over three and a half hours) is a fascinating and entertaining exploration of the career and music of Paul Simon.

The project apparently began when Mr. Simon invited Mr. Gibney in to document Mr. Simon’s work on his latest album, called Seven Psalms. And so, a major focus of this documentary is a fly-on-the-wall peek at Paul Simon’s quiet life these days, living in a cabin in Texas, and his methodical process of turning what began as a dream into a fully fleshed out album.  This process was complicated when Mr. Simon began suffering from dramatic hearing loss in one of his ears.  Watching how this affects Mr. Simon, and how he works to adapt and persevere, becomes an unexpectedly interesting and poignant aspect of this documentary.

Had that been all this documentary was, it’d have been interesting and worth watching.  But the documentary also provides a fun and fascinating look back at Mr. Simon’s long career, from his early days, to the heights of Simon & Garfunkel, to their acrimonious split, to the lows of the Hearts and Bones album (which I enjoy but which this film presents as a commercial and critical flop) to the highs of Graceland.  Mr. Simon has made so much great music, and his career has had so many twists and turns over the decades; I had a lot of fun watching this film and charting this fascinating path.  Frankly, this half of the documentary was even more interesting to watch than the present-day stuff!

I’m reasonably familiar with Paul Simon’s career and work, but I found a lot of new information and tidbits to enjoy in this look back at his career.  There are some particularly compelling deep dives into certain key moments, such as the Concert in Central Park (his reunion show with Art Garfunkel) and what came after, as well as the concert in Zimbabwe with many of the African musicians who were a part of the Graceland album.

I enjoyed the way the documentary kept finding ways to connect certain song lyrics with events from Mr. Simon’s life; showing us the words on screen.  That was an interesting approach.  I’ve always found Mr. Simon’s lyrics to be complex and also often elusive; I enjoyed the opportunity to explore aspects of their meaning.

The ins and outs of Mr. Simon’s split from Art Garfunkel have been much discussed and debated over the years.  I was curious to see how this documentary would explore that turning point.  At first I thought the doc was somewhat brushing over it (at the end of the first part), but then in part two we get to spend a decent amount of time exploring how things fell apart after their initial reunion at the Concert in Central Park.  I found it very interesting to hear Mr. Simon’s perspective on what went down.  However, I was disappointed that the documentary did not really allow Mr. Garfunkel to give his side of things.  We hear from Mr. Garfunkel briefly (in what I assume were archival clips — I don’t believe he was interviewed for this doc).  I guess a Paul Simon documentary doesn’t have any obligation to present anything other than Paul Simon’s side of the story; nevertheless, I’d have appreciated had they allowed Mr. Garfunkel to be more fully represented.  It’d have been interesting to hear his present-day reflections.

The doc does feature a number of interesting new interviews, with luminaries such as Lorne Michaels (who has some very interesting perspectives to share) and Wynton Marsalis.  I also appreciated how much time the doc allotted to allowing us to emerge ourselves in Mr. Simon’s music, particularly from performances I wasn’t that familiar with (such as that phenomenal concert in Zimbabwe).

The doc is long, but I wish it was even longer!  The history of Mr. Simon’s career starts at 1992 with Rhythm of the Saints (and the song “Obvious Child”, which gets a nice spotlight).  That was thirty years ago!!  Arguably nothing Mr. Simon has done since has matched the highs of his earlier career; still, I bet there’s a lot of interesting stuff that could have been explored (such as the whole story of the making of The Capeman musical). Oh well!

I was most drawn to the historical half of the doc, but I did also enjoy the present-day stuff.  It was both inspiring and a little sad to see Paul Simon as an old man, but one who is still trying to make great new music, following his artistic dreams and pushing his style and approach into new directions.

If you’re a Paul Simon fan, you’re going to love this.  There’s a lot here.  You’ll probably want to watch it in a few installments, as I did.  But it’s a delight; sit back and enjoy.

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