Pink Floyd - Whatever Happened To Pink Floyd? [DVD] [2011] [2010] [NTSC]

For over 40 years, Pink Floyd have been arguably the most commercially successful band of the so-called "progressive rock" era. Although the band was unique in its relative lack of band-member turnover, it was nonetheless a band driven by personal strife between its members. In the late '70s, the group's underlying tensions finally boiled over. While the group technically never disbanded, a near-irreparable rift developed between the egomaniacal Waters (the primary songwriter for most of Floyd's '70s output) and his bandmates.

That's what happened to Pink Floyd. Everyone knows it; it was hardly a secret at the time. Whatever Happened to Pink Floyd? attempts to delve deeper into not just the "what," but also the "why" behind the mess. It's mostly successful in its task--while it doesn't bring a lot of new information to the table, it does serve as a good overview of the 28 chaotic years between the release of Animals in 1977 and the band's one-off reunion at the Live 8 concert in 2005.

The film starts with the troubles that arose during the "In The Flesh" tour the band undertook to support Animals. Cheated by promoters, nearing the edge of bankruptcy, and disillusioned by the fans' rowdiness at their shows, the band members began to slide into their own personal funks, culminating with Waters spitting on a group of fans from the stage in Toronto. Desperately needing to produce an album quickly for financial purposes, Waters presented his bandmates with two possible "concept" albums for the next Pink Floyd record. One, entitled "The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking," was about a man undergoing a mid-life crisis, told in real time over the course of a single evening. (This eventually became Waters' first solo album.) The other, "Bricks in the Wall," was about a rock star becoming progressively alienated from his fans. The Wall became one of Pink Floyd's most successful albums, eclipsed (pun intended) only by the legendary 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon (which spent an unbelievable 741 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart, finally dropping off in 1988). From this triumph, the film documents the steady development of internal rifts between Waters and the rest of the band that wound up breaking Pink Floyd apart after the release of their follow-up to The Wall, the aptly-named The Final Cut.

The story doesn't end there, however--several years and one lawsuit later, Gilmour and Mason re-formed Pink Floyd and released a new album, 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Wright rejoined them for The Division Bell in 1994. When the band's friend Bob Geldof (who had played "Pink" in the movie version of The Wall) asked Gilmour if Pink Floyd--inactive since the end of the tour to support The Division Bell--might be interested in reuniting to headline the Live 8 show in London's Hyde Park, he was turned town. Nonplussed, he contacted Nick Mason, who was in favor of a reunion, and asked him to speak to Gilmour. Gilmour still refused. With time running out before the show, Mason reached out to Waters. Waters was excited about the possibility of a reunion. To help facilitate it, Waters phoned Gilmour--their first direct contact in years--to talk about reuniting. Finally, Gilmour agreed, and Pink Floyd--the real Pink Floyd--took the stage for the last time.

Whatever Happened to Pink Floyd? is an excellent music documentary--it's got a lot of primary source interviews, and some good expert witnesses on hand. There's even some interesting musical theory discussion about what makes a Waters song a "Waters song." Everybody--at least everybody who cares--knows what happened to Pink Floyd, but this film taskes the story to a whole new level and expalins in a most pleasing manner what ws behind all that happened when Waters' ego went crazy and he drove everyone else away. It's well worth purchasing for both fans of the band and those who are intigued by the type of band interactions that cause the type of fall-out that happened to Pink Floyd. The question in the title incidentally, is answered with some skillful fimmaking.

Ritchie Unterberger, All Music Guide

I bought this for my husband for his birthday. He is a big Pink Floyd fan and has watched numerous Pink Floyd documentaries. He thought this was brilliant. The documentary contained some new footage that he hadn't seen before. Once again- brilliant present.

As with the reviewer above [Ritchie] I enjoyed this documentary too, and taking its theme from a completely different angle to any other Floyd docu I've viewed, was very interested to find out the background to the long standing Waters/Gilmour conflict and to the detail given regarding the post Wall period which rarely if ever gets covered.

I can't match Ritchie's very precise and eloquent appraisal but just to say this is one hell of a fascinating, educational and entertaining film.