MYSTIFY: MICHAEL HUTCHENCE
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Director: Richard Lowenstein
Screenwriter: Richard Lowenstein
Principal cast:
Michael Hutchence
Michelle Bennett
Kylie Minogue
Helena Christensen
Country: Australia
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 102 mins.
Australian release date: 4 July 2019
Previewed at: Sydney Film Festival, Event Cinemas, George Street, Sydney, on 7 June 2019.
“You’re eternally wild with the power…” Mystify song lyrics.
Mystify: Michael Hutchence, which screened at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival and opens around Australia in early July, certainly illustrates that its subject was, indeed, “wild with the power.” Richard Lowenstein’s documentary tells the tragic story of the most charismatic of Aussie rock stars, the late, great, Michael Hutchence, who had the “moves like Jagger” before Maroon 5 sang about them and was adored by many. The lead singer of INXS, he was definitely geared for success - well-read, poetic, gifted with an amazing voice and oozing a sex appeal that was entirely natural. This documentary comes many years after the singer’s apparent suicide in 1997 at Sydney’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, but Lowenstein explained this when interviewed on A Current Affair, by saying, “What I want to leave is a legacy that wasn’t the cliché rock star legacy. I saw all these documentations and dramatisations and basically very little had the person that I knew. The people who really knew him best of all were the girlfriends. They woke up with him and saw him in the down times.”
Lowenstein made most of the band’s music videos in the 1980s and early ‘90s during their highly successful career, so he had a wealth of off-cuts and unseen footage gathering dust in his attic (he also directed Hutchence in the 1986 feature film Dogs In Space). As the band’s career took off so did Hutchence’s private life, which was always heavily scrutinised by the press and was, occasionally, as fascinating as his stage presence. His more famous partners included model Helena Christensen, pop star Kylie Minogue and TV presenter Paula Yates and Lowenstein has also been able to incorporate the most intimate footage from the private libraries of these women and, thus, succeeded in portraying the highs and lows behind the singer’s public persona. While with Christensen in Copenhagen, Hutchence was king-hit by a taxi driver and suffered undiagnosed brain trauma as a result, losing his sense of smell and taste; he also became erratic and exhibited anger management issues, the antithesis of his usually benign behaviour. Later, his relationship with Paula Yates was fraught with problems, too. He battled with her ex, Bob Geldof, when Yates planned to visit Hutchence in Sydney with their daughter and Yates's three children for a Christmas together, Geldof took legal action to prevent the visit from taking place. This resulted in a number of increasingly desperate phone calls in the hours immediately prior to Hutchence's death.
Mystify: Michael Hutchence is a compelling depiction of a talented singer’s personal life, revealed through the most amazing original footage. Lowenstein didn’t want to make a music documentary because, as stated earlier, he had recorded much of the band’s career over the years. In fact, he made a cut of this biography without using any of INXS’s music but, after managing to clear some music footage copyright with help from Tiger Lily (the daughter of Hutchence and Yates), Lowenstein was able to include some of the band’s finest songs. The interviews with girlfriends and mates such as Bono from U2, Chris Bailey of The Saints and members of the Hutchence family (intimate footage was supplied by them too), are comprehensive. However, because Hutchence was so desperate to find happiness and is shown to be a nice guy who remained down to earth, the fact that his own life was cut so tragically short makes for pretty depressing viewing. He was one of the greats but, sadly, as so often happens in the music business, it’s the good who die young.
Screenwriter: Richard Lowenstein
Principal cast:
Michael Hutchence
Michelle Bennett
Kylie Minogue
Helena Christensen
Country: Australia
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 102 mins.
Australian release date: 4 July 2019
Previewed at: Sydney Film Festival, Event Cinemas, George Street, Sydney, on 7 June 2019.
“You’re eternally wild with the power…” Mystify song lyrics.
Mystify: Michael Hutchence, which screened at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival and opens around Australia in early July, certainly illustrates that its subject was, indeed, “wild with the power.” Richard Lowenstein’s documentary tells the tragic story of the most charismatic of Aussie rock stars, the late, great, Michael Hutchence, who had the “moves like Jagger” before Maroon 5 sang about them and was adored by many. The lead singer of INXS, he was definitely geared for success - well-read, poetic, gifted with an amazing voice and oozing a sex appeal that was entirely natural. This documentary comes many years after the singer’s apparent suicide in 1997 at Sydney’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, but Lowenstein explained this when interviewed on A Current Affair, by saying, “What I want to leave is a legacy that wasn’t the cliché rock star legacy. I saw all these documentations and dramatisations and basically very little had the person that I knew. The people who really knew him best of all were the girlfriends. They woke up with him and saw him in the down times.”
Lowenstein made most of the band’s music videos in the 1980s and early ‘90s during their highly successful career, so he had a wealth of off-cuts and unseen footage gathering dust in his attic (he also directed Hutchence in the 1986 feature film Dogs In Space). As the band’s career took off so did Hutchence’s private life, which was always heavily scrutinised by the press and was, occasionally, as fascinating as his stage presence. His more famous partners included model Helena Christensen, pop star Kylie Minogue and TV presenter Paula Yates and Lowenstein has also been able to incorporate the most intimate footage from the private libraries of these women and, thus, succeeded in portraying the highs and lows behind the singer’s public persona. While with Christensen in Copenhagen, Hutchence was king-hit by a taxi driver and suffered undiagnosed brain trauma as a result, losing his sense of smell and taste; he also became erratic and exhibited anger management issues, the antithesis of his usually benign behaviour. Later, his relationship with Paula Yates was fraught with problems, too. He battled with her ex, Bob Geldof, when Yates planned to visit Hutchence in Sydney with their daughter and Yates's three children for a Christmas together, Geldof took legal action to prevent the visit from taking place. This resulted in a number of increasingly desperate phone calls in the hours immediately prior to Hutchence's death.
Mystify: Michael Hutchence is a compelling depiction of a talented singer’s personal life, revealed through the most amazing original footage. Lowenstein didn’t want to make a music documentary because, as stated earlier, he had recorded much of the band’s career over the years. In fact, he made a cut of this biography without using any of INXS’s music but, after managing to clear some music footage copyright with help from Tiger Lily (the daughter of Hutchence and Yates), Lowenstein was able to include some of the band’s finest songs. The interviews with girlfriends and mates such as Bono from U2, Chris Bailey of The Saints and members of the Hutchence family (intimate footage was supplied by them too), are comprehensive. However, because Hutchence was so desperate to find happiness and is shown to be a nice guy who remained down to earth, the fact that his own life was cut so tragically short makes for pretty depressing viewing. He was one of the greats but, sadly, as so often happens in the music business, it’s the good who die young.