Jewel in the Crown (Morrissey - The Jewel In The Crown (DVD))

Member Name: drakesdrum

Product:	Morrissey - The Jewel In The Crown (DVD)
Date:	20/08/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some interesting moments

Disadvantages: Amateurly produced, Morrissey doesn't actually feature, generally poor

The Jewel In The Crown is an unofficial DVD about the charasmatic singer, Morrissey. Morrissey's influence as an icon far exceeds the sales of his records, he is worshipped by his fans and it seems everyone has an opinion on him.

This DVD tells the story of how Morrissey came to prominence with The Smiths and later into his solo career. Many people feature throughout the DVD making comments, such as Tony Wilson, Stephen Street and Vini Reilly. Strangely, this DVD doesn't feature Morrissey at all. His music is never on, non of his performances ever feature and he never appears in the DVD. This I found strange and somewhat annoying. Some pictures of him do appear throughout the DVD but this doesn't make up for his absence in general.

The DVD concentrates somewhat on his solo career for the vast majority, which is slightly misleading to what the DVD description says. The DVD description seems to say that the story of his time in The Smiths would be a large part of the DVD contents but alas they're not. His transition into his solo career takes up a large chunk of the documentary, which is probably the best part of the DVD. It is interesting to hear what state he was in and what he was like to work with. It was interesting hearing how they would create some music with a clear verse and chorus in their heads and Morrissey would come along and sing the verse in the chorus and vice versa. Morrissey always keeps you on your toes.

The people who do make comments do make insightful comments throughout about Morrissey about him and his career. I particularly liked the small details about how he acted, for example when he was found walking around his room with a blindfold on and a walking stick pretending he was blind, which I found amusing.

The story takes you up to his comeback release in 2004 of You Are The Quarry, although it doesn't go into much depth about this album as it was made before it was released. An interesting section was detailing his downfall after the unpopular album of Maladjusted. It tells the story how he moved to Los Angeles and how he planned to 'disappear', which surely isn't true considering he did try to get record contracts.

Morrissey is somewhat of an enigma, a mystery and any material that gains insight into his life is interesting to me. Stephen Street for example, the producer of Viva Hate, Morrissey's first solo album doesn't hold back and tells the whole story. He tells it interestingly and I learnt a few things. I wouldn't say it is groundbreaking, Stephen Street has been interviewed in various places before this DVD but his comments are a good addition to the DVD. Also interesting comments come from Craig Gannon, a former member of The Smiths detailing his time he was brought in breifly into Morrissey's solo career.

The production of the DVD feels very amaterish. The graphics look very dated and looks like I could have done a better job of it using my laptop! Also, the narrator is set against music which I found annoying and sometimes I struggled to hear what people were saying because of this said music. The DVD just generally feels really amateurish which was disappointing. The splits between parts of the documentary are particularly amateurish, with a poor looking graphic appearing on the screen set against some odd, cheesy pop in the background.

Extras on this DVD include his full discography, which looks lazily produced. Another extra is a quiz, which in principle sounds good but it turned out to be easy and it was produced very annoyingly. The font is odd set against a horrible looking background. There are 15 questions in total and it wasn't a great experience.

Running at approximately 108 minutes, this DVD is to be avoided unless you are a completist of all things Morrissey, like I am. You won't learn a lot from it and I only watched it once, I don't think it has much replay value. A very disappointing effort. At £9 on amazon, this DVD is definitely not worth that sort of money.

Summary: Poor DVD