U2 rises in From The Sky Down
From The Sky Down, a documentary about Irish rock group U2 recently released in Blu-ray and DVD formats, shows the band of the ’80s almost not surviving into the ’90s.
Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (It Might Get Loud, Waiting for Superman) blends beautifully shot new scenes with animation and ’80s and ’90s footage into a chronicle of how singer Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. reinvented themselves.
As the band members tell their stories, more often in voiceover than on camera, Guggenheim documents the self-doubt and dissolution that followed the enormous success that followed the release of U2’s 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. The band’s increasing popularity through the ’80s burst into superstardom, propelling U2 from overflowing arenas to stadiums.
Behind the fame, the young men who formed U2 began thinking of themselves as frauds. They hated the solemn black-and-white images Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn depicted them in, including the The Joshua Tree album art.
“They always know that it’s difficult and, if it’s not difficult, they don’t trust it,” producer Brian Eno says. “Every record that they’ve ever made has gone right down to the last second.”
Disgusted by what the band had become, U2 traveled to Berlin in 1990 to record a new album in the until recently divided city’s beautiful Hansa Studios. The intended reinvention didn’t just go badly, it turned nearly fatal.
“For a moment it was kind of each man for himself, which is a betrayal of a band,” Bono recalls.
The film’s focus on production of the album that became Achtung Baby works. So does its survey of the band’s rise to fame, a vivid illustration of how far U2 had come and how much it had to lose.
For non-U2 loyalists who don’t instantly recognize the sound of each band member’s voice, it can be a bit difficult to tell who’s talking. That’s a minor point, though, because Bono does much of the talking and, no matter who’s talking, this is the story of a collective or, as often referred to in the narrative, a clan.
Beginning with a breakthrough song, “One,” this documentary about creative and spiritual process successfully reveals U2 resolving conflict and doubt, avoiding a Let It Be-style meltdown, exiting darkness to light. Unlike many of its ’80s peers, U2 sustained its reign as one of the world’s top music acts.
“You have to reject one expression of the band first, before you get to the next expression of the band,” Bono says. “In between you have nothing. You have to risk it all.”