Under Great White

In July of 2001 my co-worker and I flipped a coin. One of us was going to buy the strange CD we’d been passing back and forth, our hopes being that it would win our hearts and, most importantly, help our workday pass quickly. He lost, and thus had to buy a copy of a then unknown album called White Blood Cells, at the time an only regionally distributed record by The White Stripes, who were previously responsible for two locally released records in their native Detroit. We were in love with the songs by shift’s end, and by year’s end, much of America was getting a taste, too. 

A month of so after discovering the band we drove up to some dump called Detroit to see them in a small, dark, dirty club, packed with at least 50 other very sweaty kids about our age. Jack White was weirder than we could’ve imagined and Meg White was as unbelievably awkward and distant as she remains today. The show was loud and amazing, and by the time we saw the Stripes again, about a year later, we were part of a huge theater crowd. In retrospect, luck was on our side in the summer of 2001; and while I think we’ve both kinda/sorta kept up with the Stripes since then, neither of us have liked any of their albums as much as Blood Cells and neither of us have gone out of our way to see them on stage a third time.

And now they’re huge. Jack White, now a member of three popular bands (Stripes, The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs), his own record label and store and his own film company, was even called the “artist of the decade” by a number of publications and websites. I’d always known that White, a noted Orson Welles aficionado, was into film. So when I saw his self-directed video for The Dead Weather’s “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” I wasn’t a bit surprised at how excellent it looked. That in mind, I was anticipating The White Stripes’ tour film, Under Great White Northern Lights, directed by Jack Johnson friend Emmett Malloy, very much. The only question was this: should I buy the CD, the DVD or the expensive CD/DVD combo?

I opted for the DVD after listening to a friend’s copy of the live record. The record was good, of course, but the DVD, to me, was the more intriguing project - given the goal set forth by the band. For this tour, they wanted to not just play the big cities in Canada, they wanted to play everywhere in Canada. They played big theaters, small venues, city buses, bowling alleys, cafes and more. And while I was certainly loving the concept before seeing a second of film, once I popped the case open and saw an essay written by Jim Jarmusch, I was absolutely sold.

Now, the movie. The White Stripes have a red, white and black plane and, while touring Canada for the first time in their 13 year existence, use a red, white and black map. The color scheme for the film? Red, white and black, naturally. Their stage lighting and gear? Same. For a seemingly spontaneous garage rock duo, they sure seem to consider pretty much everything about their appearance and - let’s face it - their branding. But, once I got over these sorts of small details, the film reminded me of something I once shouted from the record store aisles my friend and I worked at: Jack White is a creative genius. He knows when the camera is on him and he’s always - be it on stage or on a random piano he happens upon between shows - putting on a show. He’s always on, and when he talks it’s always interesting and often profound. He’s become a complex man and artist since I last paid close attention to him, and the nooks and crannies of Malloy’s film are the better for it.

And, damn, what a monster guitar player and singer Jack is, easily offering enough presence for a whole band, soaking the stage with sweat while unleashing one performance idea after another. He’s a brilliant studio musician and arguably an even better performer, making this tour film (which is about half performance and half behind-the-scenes footage) enjoyable from front to back. But I doubt I need to tell anyone about Jack’s skill and talent.

One of my favorite scene in the film comes when the Stripes leave a late show to find that, in northern Canada, it’s still light out late at night. As they drive around, soaked in sweat, Jack sips wine straight from the bottle and smiles humbly, waving at fans who are walking the streets, howling at him. (Meg sits smoking, which is pretty much the only thing she does in the film when not playing drums.) It’s a great, human moment - something the Stripes don’t usually have, given their stiffness.

Northern Lights is a film (and, to a lesser degree, live album) that I could go on and on about for longer than the running time of the film. Mostly, Malloy’s inside look at the Stripes is a cool rock n’ roll movie, which should be the goal of anyone making a rock documentary. Malloy and the Stripes take us on a 93-minute road trip that reminds us of Jack White’s unique genius while also showing us the corners of Canada. And, of course, it rocks us pretty hard, too.  9/10

Written by G. William Locke