Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, November 24: DANNY SAYS
Brendan Toller’s portrait of a man behind legendary music acts debuted at SXSW earlier this year. It has also screened at BFI London, San Francisco Jewish, Provincetown, Sound + Vision, Big Sky, Montclair, Melbourne, CPH:DOX, and Athens, among other events.
Already immortalized by the Ramones’ song that lends this film its title, Danny Fields (born Feinberg) is the latest in a string of most famous background people the general public has never heard of, much like Shep Gordon, the subject of SUPERMENSCH. Like that music world impresario, Fields had a hand in the careers of an unexpectedly diverse range of superstar performers in the 1960s-1970s, from the Beatles to Lou Reed, the Doors to Iggy Pop, and, of course, the Ramones. Taking on roles such as music magazine editor, press agent, Elektra executive, and band manager, the brash New Yorker – openly gay before it was socially acceptable – always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, at least for a time, but never long enough to make out financially for his prescient tastes. Toller tells a likeable, energetic tale rife with anecdotes, though limited in its scope to the decades noted above.
what (not) to doc 