The silver screen is accustomed to telling the stories of the rock bands who make it, but director David Case has decided to take a different angle with his poignant, vibrant and sardonic ‘Not Fade Away’.

The story seems to draw inspiration from the director’s life, since just as the character of Douglas tries to pursue a rock n’roll career with his New Jersey band, David Chase dreamed of being a star drummer in a rock band and spent many years playing in the 1960s East Coast music scene, before he became a multi-talented film-maker, achieving great success as executive producer of ‘The Sopranos’.

‘Not Shade Away’, his love letter to the music of the Sixties, grasps with great subtlety and irony the mood of the bands who tried to emulate the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks and Bob Dylan; no wonder the movie takes its title from a song popularised by Buddy Holly and by The Rolling Stones.

James Gandolfini, star of ‘The Sopranos’ in the cast is Douglas’ father and the patriarch of the Italian-American family very stuck to traditions and totally dumbstruck by the generation gap with his children. The father and son conflict depicts the contextualised snapshot of changing social dynamics. Douglas (John Magaro) along with his fellow band partners – Eugene (Jack Huston), Wells (Will Brill), Joe (Brahm Vaccarella) and Skip (Gregory Perry) – and his beau Grace Deitz (Bella Heathcote) break away from traditions to ride the wave of politics and civil rights movement in pursuit of their creative fulfilment.

Great protagonist of the story is the era that David Chase likes to evoke not only through music and fashion but also showing some memorable extracts of ‘The Twilight Zone’ and Antonioni’s ‘Blow Up’. ‘Not Fade Away’ undoubtably has the ability of blending a wicked sense of humour with raw realism, in circumstances lived by flawed characters that you can’t help but adore.

by Chiara Spagnoli from NY city

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