Old rockers give new meaning to life and lyrics

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) -
The unlikely image of a 92-year-old
war bride screaming The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
into a microphone backed by an elderly chorus has already
captivated live audiences around the world.

Now the film version is set to do the same.

"Young at Heart" documents the group of U.S. senior
citizens belting out songs by Sonic Youth through to James
Brown. The small-town act has been running for some 25 years
but international fame is now at hand.

"A monster has been created," British filmmaker Stephen
Walker joked in an interview about the film's rise.

It started as a 2006 British television documentary and
became an audience favorite at the Los Angeles and Sundance
film festivals in 2007 and 2008.

The opening sequence showing Eileen Hall, then 92, singing
the 1982 hit from punk-rock group The Clash provided the
inspiration for Walker when he first saw the group onstage in
London in 2005.

"I was totally blown away," Walker said. "It was an amazing
way to look at this song afresh. It becomes a song about love
and death and not about relationships."

The film opens across the United States this week and,
after scoring distribution deals, will soon open in France,
Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and Australia.

AGING OUTCRY

Besides giving new meaning to lyrics from popular hits, the
film is comedic and poignant as it explores friendship, old age
and death.

It also addresses a society fed up with a "youth-obsessed
and celebrity culture," Walker said.

"People are getting something extraordinary from this,"
Walker said about the standing ovations at preview screenings
in the United States. "Somehow a nerve is being touched here."

Bob Cilman, the group's musical director for the past 25
years, said the popularity showed that audiences wanted to see
more elderly people in the public spotlight, on stage or in
film.

"Whether it is Australia, France or America, everybody is
obsessed with youth and we fly in the face of that," said
Cilman, 54. "People applaud it because (youth culture) is not
what people want but it is what people are spoon-fed."

Stan Goldman, 78, shown in the film singing a duet of James
Brown's "I Feel Good," told Reuters the group did not seek rock
star status.

"In our wildest imaginations we never anticipated this," he
said.

"You get so caught up in your singing you forget your
pain," she said.

Reuters/Nielsen

This content was originally posted on http://entertainews.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog