This Is Spinal Tap (film)
"This Is Spinal Tap" is a 1984 mockumentary film directed by Rob Reiner, portraying the fictional heavy metal band Spinal Tap, which is presented as "one of England's loudest bands." The narrative follows the band during a fictional comeback tour across the United States in 1982, highlighting the absurdities and challenges faced by rock musicians, such as their musical evolution, interactions with the media, and struggles with the record industry. The film cleverly satirizes the culture surrounding heavy metal and glam rock, drawing comparisons to real-life bands like Led Zeppelin and Mötley Crüe.
The film features performances and improvisation by its lead actors—Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer—who also contributed to the original music. While the first half humorously critiques various aspects of the rock scene, the latter part of the film delves into themes of friendship and personal growth as the band faces its disintegration. "This Is Spinal Tap" is notable for its unique blend of deadpan humor and character-driven performances, influencing the genre of mockumentaries and spawning a series of follow-up projects and similar films in the years that followed.
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This Is Spinal Tap (film)
Identification American comedy film
Director Rob Reiner
Date Released March 2, 1984
Reiner’s debut independent film was one of the first “mockumentaries,” a deadpan, right-on-target satire on the excesses and outright silliness of the heavy metal rock-and-roll scene of the 1980’s.
Key Figures
Rob Reiner (1947- ), film director
In the mock documentary This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner plays director Marty DiBergi, who is making a documentary concert film on the heavy metal group Spinal Tap, distinguished as “one of England’s loudest bands.” The band was supposedly formed in 1976 and is making a comeback tour across the United States in 1982. The film pretends to be a rock documentary (like Martin Scorsese’s 1978 The Last Waltz, about the last concert of the Band, or Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 Let It Be, about the impending breakup of the Beatles) but portrays the stupidity, hedonism, and blind following of rock bands of this era, combining the satiric targets of early heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and later 1980’s glam rock and theatrical metal bands such as Kiss, Megadeth, W.A.S.P., and Mötley Crüe.
The film’s three lead actors, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, helped Reiner script and improvise the scenes, and the three also helped compose the music they played in the film. The first half of the film accurately pokes fun at the musical styles the band goes through, the television media spots, the difficulty of finding hotel accommodations on the road (or top billing at gigs), and the small-minded and self-important record industry people. Though the second half of the film recounts the tour’s crash and the band’s disintegration, it also warmly tells a story of friendship, change, soul searching, and final reunion. The always-in-character acting style, something like “the method” mixed with deadpan comic improvisation, derives from Peter Sellers’s style of acting in Dr. Strangelove (1964) or Being There (1979) and Andy Kaufman’s television spots on the comedy variety show Saturday Night Live and foreshadows Sacha Baron Cohen in the film Borat (2006).
Impact
Although Reiner later directed other successful comedies such as The Princess Bride (1987) and When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989), This Is Spinal Tap spawned a series of “reality” docucomedies, including a Return of Spinal Tap reunion concert film in 1992. In fact, the three lead actors, Guest, McKean, and Shearer, along with comedians Eugene Levy and Fred Willard, later starred in other mockumentaries directed by Guest: Waiting for Guffman (1996), about a local theater group; Best in Show (2000), about dog shows; A Mighty Wind (2003), about nearly forgotten folk singers; and For Your Consideration (2006), about Hollywood actors and awards.
Bibliography
French, Karl, ed. This Is Spinal Tap: Official Companion. New York: Bloomsbury, 2000.
Maslin, Janet. “Film: This Is Spinal Tap, a Mock Documentary.” The New York Times, March 2, 1984.
Occhiogrosso, Peter. Inside Spin¨alTap. New York: Arbor House, 1985.