DVD Review: The Quiet One

STUDIO: IFC/MPI | DIRECTOR: Oliver Murrray
RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019 | PRICE: DVD $13.19
BONUSES: none
SPECS: NR | 98 min. | Documentary music | 1.85:1 widescreen | 5.1 stereo | English and Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie  1/2 | Audio | Video | Overall  1/2

The Quiet One, a feature-length chronicle on the life and career of the bassist and founding member of The Rolling Stones for their first three decades, is, not ironically, I guess, one of the quietest rock docs ever made about the world’s most famous rock’n’roll band.

Wyman’s famously low-key approach to his craft partnered well with similarly restrained Stones drummer Charlie Watts, creating one of rock’s most durable rhythm sections. He also led a very private life, considering his profession, but did put considerable time and energy into keeping up a personal archive of photographs, home movies, audio and video interviews, memorabilia and all manner of ephemera going back to his childhood. Wyman opened up his archive to the journalists and historians several years back and it’s those materials that comprise the best parts of the The Quiet One. The performance clips and new and vintage interview segments with such luminaries as Eric Clapton and engineer Glyn Johns aren’t nearly as informative as the goodies that Wyman has stashed away over the years, the majority of which has never been seen before. Put together by filmmaker Oliver Murray which paint a picture of a reserved musician who with sudden success was thrust into a whirlwind of sex, rebellion and drugs (of which he didn’t generally partake).

On the personal side, Bill Wyman’s childhood, young adult years and love life is all covered, giving only a minute or two to his quickie marriage to British pop tart Mandy Smith in 1989, when Wyman was 52 and Smith was 18, which was probably the most rock’n’roll behavior he ever exhibited.