Offstage Bill Withers, the eternal hero of karaoke baritones, exhibits the same gift for aphorism and general soulfulness that informed hit songs like “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” This makes much of the biographical documentary “Still Bill” pleasant and even moving. Looking out the window of a car, pondering his place in the culture, Mr. Withers says: “I think I’m kind of like pennies. You have ’em in your pocket but you don’t remember they’re there.”
Another pleasure of this film by Damani Baker and Alex Vlack is the opportunity to hear less familiar Withers songs like “Grandma’s Hands” and “I Don’t Know.” But the documentary is less about music than it is about roots (the camera follows Mr. Withers on a visit to his hometown, Slab Fork, W.Va.) and, especially, fame, or the ability to do without it. Mr. Withers, who became a star in 1971 when he was in his early 30s, has not made an album since 1985. “I sit there, I watch other people show off and I say, man, I used to want to show off,” he says. “If I could just get, you know, moved to. I need a little injection in my showin’ off gland.”
A dialogue among Mr. Withers, the scholar Cornel West and the television host Tavis Smiley feels forced, and a 20-minute stretch in the studio as he works on new songs with his daughter, Kori, and the singer-songwriter Raul Midon is a momentum-killer. But it’s worth waiting for him just to talk.
“It’s O.K. to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful you’re going to have to pass through all right,” he says. “And when you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it because that may be as far as you’re going to go.”
STILL BILL
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Directed by Damani Baker and Alex Vlack; directors of photography, Jon Fine, Mr. Baker and Edward Marritz; edited by Mr. Fine and Sakae Ishikawa; produced by Mr. Baker, Mr. Vlack and Mr. Fine; released by B-Side. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. This film is not rated.
thanks DR. Robert