Review: IN RESTLESS DREAMS: THE MUSIC OF PAUL SIMON - An Exceptional Look At A Musical Icon - Movies In Focus
Folk star, musical icon and world music pioneer – Paul Simon has been many things across his long career. From his early days playing teenage pop alongside childhood Art Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry to their breakthrough Simon & Garfunkel success and then his work as a solo artist, Simon’s career has encompassed many forms and sounds over the decades. Alex Gibney’s new documentary film, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon pulls all this together in a fascinating three-and-a-half-hour documentary. Using the recording of Simon’s 2023 album, Seven Psalms as an entry point, there’s a melancholic retrospection to the film as it dips back in time, weaving the present and the past to tell Simon’s life through the trajectory of his musical career. As an album, Seven Psalms is about retrospection and the acceptance of the passage of time, knowing that the end is approaching – and we begin with an older Simon dealing with hearing loss as he makes the album in his Texas recording studio. It’s a fitting way for Gibney to bring his subject into focus as a man and as a musician. Using an exceptional array of photographs and archive footage to show Simon’s [...]
