Crowe Premieres Music Doc 'What Love Builds' at Venice — SkimNews
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- Russell Crowe premiered his bio-doc concert film What Love Builds Out of Competition to a 1,400-strong Venice Film Festival crowd on Friday evening, receiving sustained applause and concert-style clapping throughout.
- Crowe, who wrote, directed and produced the film, said at a press conference the project was 15 years in the making and required cutting down 18 feet of accumulated footage to shape its narrative.
- The documentary traces Crowe's musical life from his teen performances in Auckland under the stage name Russ Le Roq, through 415 shows in a New Zealand production of The Rocky Horror Show, to his first major band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, which he abruptly disbanded after Sony head Tommy Mottola pushed to sign them.
- Crowe reveals the line in Gladiator in which Maximus says he has been away for '2 years, 264 days, and this morning' was rewritten at his request, drawn from Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U' lyric 'seven hours and 15 days.'
- On Robin Hood (2010), Crowe cast musician-actors as the merry men, including Scott Grimes, who went on to join his current band Indoor Garden Party alongside Samantha Barks and Alan Doyle.
- Crowe also addresses career lows in the film, including his 2005 New York arrest for throwing a telephone at a hotel employee and the 'pain' of paparazzi pursuit, while expressing gratitude for photos they captured of him with his children.
- Crowe told the press conference he had specifically targeted Venice as the premiere venue, enlisting Italian director Gabriele Muccino to connect him with festival director Alberto Barbera.
Why it matters: Crowe spent 15 years assembling this deeply personal documentary to answer what he says is the question he gets asked most — the difference between his music and acting — arguing in the film that the two are 'completely intertwined.' For Venice, landing a star-driven, crowd-pleasing premiere on this scale reinforces the festival's appetite for music-driven, emotionally resonant nonfiction alongside its prestige dramas.
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