Back in 1990, the downfall of European pop duo Milli Vanilli seemed like an open-and-shut case of disgrace.
They — Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus — were the lip-synching scofflaws, convicted in the court of public opinion of fraud against a generation of FM Top 40 radio listeners robbed of our precious sense that music and its artistic authorship were directly linked. The punishment? Permanent professional ostracism and punchline status — though when Pilatus died of an accidental drug overdose in 1998, the reality became even more punitive.
Luke Korem’s new documentary Milli Vanilli attempts to give the “Blame It on the Rain” non-singers 106 minutes of re-evaluation. Were they perpetrators or victims? If they were some gradation of the latter, who were the actual villains? If they were some gradation of the former, did the punishment fit the crime? What did Rob and Fab actually do, what was their actual sin and why did audiences respond the way they did?...
They — Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus — were the lip-synching scofflaws, convicted in the court of public opinion of fraud against a generation of FM Top 40 radio listeners robbed of our precious sense that music and its artistic authorship were directly linked. The punishment? Permanent professional ostracism and punchline status — though when Pilatus died of an accidental drug overdose in 1998, the reality became even more punitive.
Luke Korem’s new documentary Milli Vanilli attempts to give the “Blame It on the Rain” non-singers 106 minutes of re-evaluation. Were they perpetrators or victims? If they were some gradation of the latter, who were the actual villains? If they were some gradation of the former, did the punishment fit the crime? What did Rob and Fab actually do, what was their actual sin and why did audiences respond the way they did?...
- 6/13/2023
- by Daniel Fienberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s one of the inside-out realities of our era that scandal, if you give it enough time, turns into myth. So it is with the story of Milli Vanilli, the German-French R&b pop duo of the late ’80s and early ’90s who, having sold close to 50 million records, were revealed to be a fake: a pair of lip-syncing Euro pretty boys who hadn’t sung a note on any of their hits or at any of their concerts.
Once they’d been unmasked, the rise and fall of Milli Vanilli played out on two levels. The first was the spectacular embarrassing bad joke of it all — though it was never just a joke, since Milli Vanilli’s fans felt a tremendous sense of anger and betrayal at having been fooled. (The joke was on them.) The second level recognized a crucial and obvious truth: that the scandal wasn...
Once they’d been unmasked, the rise and fall of Milli Vanilli played out on two levels. The first was the spectacular embarrassing bad joke of it all — though it was never just a joke, since Milli Vanilli’s fans felt a tremendous sense of anger and betrayal at having been fooled. (The joke was on them.) The second level recognized a crucial and obvious truth: that the scandal wasn...
- 6/12/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Some three decades after one of the biggest scandals in the history of pop music, Milli Vanilli still commands a certain fascination for those who lived through the 1980s. Their debut album went six times platinum and they won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1990, but later that year Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus, the faces of the group, had to do a mea culpa because they had not actually sung on the album.
Luke Korem’s documentary, “Milli Vanilli,” which receives its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival and will stream on Paramount+ in the fall, is well-researched and polished, even if it’s essentially a feature-length episode of “Behind the Music.”
The movie traces the story as far back as their humble beginnings. Pilatus, born in Germany to an American soldier and a strip dancer, lived in an orphanage until age 4. Morvan, from a broken family, moved at 18 from Paris to Munich,...
Luke Korem’s documentary, “Milli Vanilli,” which receives its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival and will stream on Paramount+ in the fall, is well-researched and polished, even if it’s essentially a feature-length episode of “Behind the Music.”
The movie traces the story as far back as their humble beginnings. Pilatus, born in Germany to an American soldier and a strip dancer, lived in an orphanage until age 4. Morvan, from a broken family, moved at 18 from Paris to Munich,...
- 6/11/2023
- by Martin Tsai
- The Wrap
Voltage Pictures has boarded worldwide sales, excluding Germany, on buzzy Milli Vanilli biopic Girl You Know It’s True from Leonine Studios and Wiedemann & Berg Film. The company began shopping the title at Berlin’s European Film Market after a footage showcase for buyers on Thursday.
The film follows the spectacular 1980s rise of the Grammy-winning German-French R&b duo, as well as their fall after it emerges that they lip-synch all of their songs. It wrapped production late last year and is expected to be ready for release near the end of 2023.
Newcomers Tijan Njie from Germany and Elan Ben Ali from France play bandmates Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, while Simon Verhoeven (Welcome to Germany) directs and Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann (The Lives of Others, Dark) produce. The film also features Matthias Schweighöfer (Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer), Graham Rogers (The Kominsky Method) and Bella Dayne (Troy: Fall of a City).
Verhoeven,...
The film follows the spectacular 1980s rise of the Grammy-winning German-French R&b duo, as well as their fall after it emerges that they lip-synch all of their songs. It wrapped production late last year and is expected to be ready for release near the end of 2023.
Newcomers Tijan Njie from Germany and Elan Ben Ali from France play bandmates Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, while Simon Verhoeven (Welcome to Germany) directs and Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann (The Lives of Others, Dark) produce. The film also features Matthias Schweighöfer (Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer), Graham Rogers (The Kominsky Method) and Bella Dayne (Troy: Fall of a City).
Verhoeven,...
- 2/18/2023
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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