I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - A Film About Wilco
June 2003 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

In its overall framework, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart reminds me of another fine documentary: Startup.com. Both are about a series of events that the makers of the films could not have anticipated when they began their work. In Startup.com, the crash of Internet stocks after a precipitous rise pushed the film into new territory. In I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Reprise rejects rock band Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and subsequently dismisses the group altogether. These events surely caught band and filmmaker off guard, and gave the film a more interesting twist. But the story ends happily (I'm not spoiling things by telling this -- it's common knowledge among Wilco fans): Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was released to the band, who shopped it around and eventually signed with the Nonesuch label for its release -- and more money. In a wicked bit of irony, AOL Time Warner owns both Reprise and Nonesuch, so ultimately the same company paid Wilco to make the record, then let the band have it after dropping them, and finally paid them a second time to buy it back.

True to the original intent of the film's director, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is firmly about the making of the album and Wilco's day-to-day existence in their loft recording space and the studio. There are many ways to approach this film -- a sign of its quality. It documents the creative process with unforced insight and divulges the inner workings of a band whose approach to its music is dynamic. The film also covers the process of turning a group of songs into a tightly knit record and ultimately, what the Beatles wrought more than 30 years ago with Sgt. Pepper's: the creative use of the recording studio. It's all in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, along with small portraits of the musicians -- especially Wilco's front man Jeff Tweedy -- and a lot of music. Tweedy may be a rock star, but he's also a regular guy, someone you would remember for his good-natured wit if you met him at a bar or lunch counter. And he's an earnest performer -- solo or with Wilco.

Director Sam Jones gives I Am Trying to Break Your Heart visual interest by filming in black and white and cranking up the contrast to create some grain. So while the DVD image is probably very good, the original film deliberately looks a little washed out and rough around the edges. It works. A few of the supplementary materials are in color, and after seeing the film, all I could think was that they didn't look quite right. The sound is the equal of that on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD, which is to say it is good but not great.

In terms of packaged extras, the people at Plexifilm have done a job equal to a Criterion Collection release. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is a two-disc set; the second disc is chock-full of additional concert footage and performances of unreleased songs -- exactly the stuff that should be included, and a lot of it (17 additional songs). There is also a making-of featurette along with a 40-page booklet that includes, among other things, liner notes from Rolling Stone writer David Fricke. About the only thing missing from the package is a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a darned fine album that anybody likely to buy this DVD set will already own. And if you don't own it, miss it at your peril, as they say in the music-reviewing biz.

In the end, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is the sort of film you can watch again and again because of its musical performances, but it's not purely a concert film. Wilco is about the music to be sure, and while this documentary underscores that point, the music is not all that happens in the film -- not by a long shot. If you think that making an album is easy work, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart will shatter that notion.

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