Paul Simon
| Photo Credit: Evan Agostini
After a three-and-a-half-hour documentary on his life, Paul Simon had solely sympathy for the viewers.
“You’re probably exhausted,” Simon informed the group after the premiere of Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” on Sunday on the Toronto International Film Festival.
The 81-year-old Simon, himself, hadn’t watched the movie earlier than its debut, and he did not watch it Sunday, both. “I’ll get up the courage to see it, no doubt,” he promised.
The movie, which is searching for distribution at TIFF, is an expansive have a look at Simon’s decades-spanning profession, from rising up in Queens, New York, with Art Garfunkel to the success of “Graceland,” the sensational 1986 album he made with South African musicians.
“In Restless Dreams,” which takes its title from a lyric in “The Sound of Silence” (“In restless dreams I walked alone”), additionally intimately captures Simon painstakingly assembling his newest album, “Seven Psalms,” which was released in May.
He began the album, his first in several years, he says, after a dream in 2019 in which he envisioned an album of seven songs. His work at his home studio in Wimberly, Texas, was made more difficult by Simon’s hearing loss in his left ear, throwing off his musical equilibrium.
“I haven’t accepted it entirely, but I’m beginning to,” Simon told the audience of his hearing loss in a post-screening Q&A.
Simon reached out to Gibney, the veteran documentarian of “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Taxi to the Dark Side,” after admiring his 2015 documentary “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All.” Though the cameras took some adjusting to, Simon was content for Gibney to assemble a narrative around his life.
“Having the truth about me depicted by an observer is very interesting to me,” Simon stated. “I feel I’m in all probability not the particular person to wish to describe what the reality is. I’m biased on either side. I overestimate myself and I dislike myself to a adequate diploma that I’d fairly give it to another person to doc.”
Further, Simon stated, he wished a few of his earlier recording periods had been filmed, like these for 1970’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or “Graceland.” “In Restless Dreams” does embrace some uncommon footage, together with 16mm dailies from the making of the 1969 documentary “Songs of America” and early rehearsals of “Graceland.”
After some prodding, Simon acknowledged that he’s nonetheless making music and not too long ago wrote a new track. Ideas are additionally nonetheless coming to him at evening, too.
“The other night I dreamed again,” Simon stated, to applause. “I dreamed it would be a good idea if I wrote a song called ‘It’s What’s His Name.’”
