It’s rare for a band’s tour documentary to appeal beyond its fanbase. But with Grant Gee’s documentary Meeting People is Easy, it’s even more of a miracle to come near the artistic breadth of Radiohead’s OK Computer, an album which has been periodically voted the greatest of all time since its release in 1997. On today’s episode we talk how Gee managed to sustain the heightened style of a music video through the feature’s length, using overlapping images, an emphasis on lyricism, non-sync sound, all trying to mimic not just the band’s sound, but also the visual style of Thom Yorke and designer Stanley Donwood. Also: how Gee originally was called in for the original idea to make a video for each of OK Computer’s songs, the thought process of putting then-unreleased songs snippets into the cut, the “amazing” unused Kid A footage he shot that was just “wrong,” writer Patricia Lockwood’s thoughtful description a moment in the film, and matching the album’s particular innovation of mixing digital and analogue with his own multiple visual formats like Super 8mm, 16mm Bolex, and B&W digital video.
Along with Meeting People is Easy, Grant Gee has also directed the documentary Joy Division, music videos for Radiohead, Blur, Spooky, and worked with acts ranging from Coldplay, Nick Cave, and Scott Walker. He’s currently at work on the documentary The Gold Machine about Welsh writer Iain Sinclair, the third in his trilogy of feature cityscapes about writers.
Meeting People is Easy is streaming for free online at Radiohead’s Public Library and is also available on PAL VHS from the W.A.S.T.E. HQ.