The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020)

Directed by: Frank Marshall | 111 minutes | documentary, music | Starring: Barry Gibb, Andy Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb

The Bee Gees are the subject of a new HBO documentary titled ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’. With a positive yet reserved undertone, the documentary examines the lives and careers of Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb, the three brothers who founded The Bee Gees in 1958, beginning with their childhood in Australia and early careers in London in the 1970s. sixty.

Barry Gibb, the only surviving Bee Gee, is interviewed in the film and previously recorded conversations with the deceased twins Robin and Maurice are used. Other musicians influenced by The Bee Gees – including Eric Clapton, Noel Gallagher and Justin Timberlake – are also interviewed in the documentary.

Frank Marshall’s (‘Arachnophobia’) production is superbly documented, with extensive archival footage from a lesser-known angle, the childhood and early career of the Bee Gees. Did you know that the trio rivaled The Beatles in the early 1960s, with music a little less drawl than the soulful work of the 1970s and 1980s?

Fantastic harmonies, which you really only found with The Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel, combined with songs that offered something for everyone in the sixties. Where the serious music audience later often turned their noses at ‘De piepertjes’, a kind of male ABBA, Clapton and Gallagher, among others, praise the brothers in a convincing way – a strong point in this documentary.

The number of classics will blow your mind, from ‘Massachussetts’, through ‘Tragedy’ to self-released ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, and later as hitmakers for Barbra Streisand (‘Woman in Love’) and Dionne Warwick (‘Heartbreaker ‘). Oh well, those numbers weren’t suitable for the brothers, everyone says. In spite of high-pitched voices and flowing chest hair, The Bee Gees were authentic in what they did, and it flows smoothly in a never-boring seven quarters of an hour.