“You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends, when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights,” lead singer Matt Berninger sings on the National’s Mistaken For Strangers, the lead single from their album ‘Boxer’.
The title of that tune was adopted by Matt’s little brother, Tom, for his behind the scenes documentary of the band’s ongoing Trouble Will Find Me tour. An unemployed film-school graduate living with his parents and, by his own admission, feeling pretty depressed, Tom was invited by Matt - nine years his senior - to work as a roadie for the National as they took their small hours indie-rock across Europe.
But instead of doing the menial things asked of him, Tom spent his time playing out his own Spinal Tap fantasy. He drank, he partied, he royally pissed everyone off, all the while concerning himself with the self-assigned task of making his film, which opened the Tribeca Film Festival and will play at the Leeds International Film Festival on November 14.
“It sucked being a roadie, and I was pretty bad at it,” Tom said. “I was usually late, or I forgot about something really important. I got very sidetracked filming, and I got very sidetracked having a very good time. I drank away any responsibilities I had. I was just doing what I wanted, and I was trying to make a film without having any idea what kind of film I wanted to make.”
But partying wasn’t that easy. It’s pretty clear that Tom finds his brother and his brother’s band exasperating, both musically and in their touring habits. In the film’s opening scene, Matt sums up Tom’s attitude to indie-rock in general as “pretentious bullshit”.
The film cuts to Tom, the self-confessed metalhead, scrunching his nose up, pursing his lips and headbanging as he drives through his native Cincinnati. He went on tour looking for rock and roll. He found himself on a pokey coach in Eastern Europe during winter, surrounded by married, dedicated and seriously professional thirtysomething men.
“I had to do all the partying for them,” he said. “I quickly realised, if I wanted to make an interesting film, I would have to make a film about me, and not about the band.”
While we are offered an intimate insight into the toil of life on the road - as well as the throb of an expectant crowd, the nervous moments before walking onstage and the carousel of hotels, departure lounges and dressing rooms - the strange, strained sibling dynamic at the heart of Mistaken For Strangers, and the insider/outsider status Tom had on the tour, separates this film from the typical canned-drama, exposé rockumentary.
In an effort to shake them out of their sensible behaviour, Tom interviewed each band member separately, posing such Paxman-esque questions as: “How famous do you think you are?” “Do you ever get sleepy onstage?” “What do you do with your wallet when you’re performing?” or “Where do you see the National in 50 years?”
In one of the film’s funniest scenes, he pins the National’s long-haired drummer, Bryan Devendorf, into a corner of a room: “They’re all just so, y’know, coffeehouse. You seem more metal.” When he doesn’t answer, Tom asks: “How many drugs, and what kind of drugs, have you done?”
Asked to describe why he hated the lowly work of a roadie so much, Tom goes off on a diatribe about coconut water and fruit and vegetable plates, some of the things the National requested.
“Oh my god, fuckin’ coconut water,” he said. “I would spend so much time looking for coconut water in some place like Warsaw. I’d end up with canned coconut concentrate, which is the closest thing they have in Warsaw, and then the band wouldn’t be pleased that it wasn’t right.”
But for all the humour, Mistaken For Strangers is a frank and painful confessional; a study of one guy’s self-doubt in the face of his charismatic, complicated, adored older brother. “It sucks being Matt’s brother,” the director says in one of a series of video diaries. “He’s a rock star and I’m not.”
Yet Tom also obviously idolises Matt, who toured and recorded with his band for 10 years straight before the mainstream began to beckon. He still works “really hard, every day,” according to Tom, who includes some of the band’s early performances in the film.
“Our records are about 45 minutes of sound coming out of the speakers, and that’s it,” says bass player Scott Devendorf in the film. “And the truth is, it takes us two years to make that, and it took a long time to get where we are now.”
Without playing the tunes straight, Tom effectively translates the mood and feel of seeing the National live - Matt Berninger’s lyrics, crooned in that soft, cavernous baritone and backed by those tragi-epic melodies. There’s a sense not just of angst, but to some kind of shared existence.
Tom should have showed such footage to his fellow roadies, who clearly viewed him as nothing but a freeloading slacker. “You just need to be careful about not partying,” says tour manager Brandon in one of many dressing downs. ”You’re not a band member, you’re a crew member.”
Tom films himself becoming increasingly alienated from the tour. “The only reason why he thinks I’m on tour is because I’m your brother,” he whines to Matt. Matt looks at his feet, before quietly answering: “The only reason you are here is because you’re my brother.”
If that sounds as earnest and melanchoy as the National’s output, then don’t be fooled. In his Variety review, Ronnie Scheib posed the question: “It remains ambiguous to what extent the director’s screen persona, which raises schlubbiness to an art form, is legit.” Talking to Tom Berninger on the phone for 45 minutes, the question seems even more pressing. Tom talks of how his brother introduced him to Ricky Gervais’ series The Office before they embarked on the tour, and of how the awkward, often silent humour of the show influenced Mistaken For Strangers.
“When I was editing the movie, Matt told me to sit down and watch The Office, and it really got to me,” he said. “What I love about Ricky Gervais is how he combines humour with heart and kindness. I think I stood up and cheered during the Christmas show, when Dawn comes back.”
On Brandon, he admits to manipulating the footage for dramatic purposes. “Brandon’s a great guy, and a victim of my editing I’ll admit," he said. "He’s all business, and he could be so hard on me in some of the scenes. So I decided to keep those scenes in the film, and cut all the scenes of him being cool. I told him that I needed a Darth Vader for my movie, and that I was going to paint him as an asshole.”
Asked what advice he’d give to another movie-maker, Tom said: “I would tell someone, honestly, to do whatever it takes - even if it’s a documentary - to make a good story. If you wish a documentary took a certain turn, then find that turn. Go out and hunt for it.”
But for all his creative takes on the austere nature of the documentary, Tom’s film remains an affecting piece of work. It pivots on a moment of rare candour from Matt who, at the sight Tom unravelling over his inability to pull the film together, reflects on the early years of the National.
“For so long, we’d go on tour, and no-one would turn up,” he says. “That happened a lot in the early days, and it was so humiliating for us. I remember the first time we played at the Mercury Lounge, which we thought was a big deal, and no-one turned up. I remember going home, closing the door and just crying.”
Matt is often opaque and guarded in the film, unable to hide the irritation he feels towards his brother or the mundane stresses of the tour. In the last act of the film, in the safety of his own home and with his wife, the former New Yorker literary editor Carin Besser, acting as a peacekeeper, the brothers begin to properly bond. It allows Tom to gain a sense of focus, an understanding that he would have to project his failures into the core of the movie in order to make it work. It’s genuinely moving, and feels perfectly in keeping with the sensibilities of the National.
“When we started putting that tension and anxiety and fear and humiliation into the music, and put it out there,” Matt continues. “It made us closer to each other, and for the people that did come to the shows - that was the connection.”
The National UK & Ireland Tour Dates are as follows
Mon November 11th 2013 - MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Tue November 12th 2013 - MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Wed November 13th 2013 - LONDON Alexandra Palace
Thu November 14th 2013 - LONDON Alexandra Palace
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