Prolific in his brilliant material but not exactly a personable man, Eric Clapton is both staggering and strange. He may make for some of the finest guitar riffs and instrumental additions out there, be it with Cream or Derek and the Dominos, but the purpose of a documentary should be to delve into the triumphs as well as the ugly truths. Eric Clapton: A Life in Twelve Bars, is an entry point into the where, the who, and the why. His hellbent desire to raise the bar and profile of blues, at any cost, is the main purpose of this documentary from Lili Fini Zanuck. An audience must suspend what they know of Clapton in the modern day to get a feel for this one, to accept the tragedy and reaction of a man who went on to make laughable lockdown protest songs with Van Morrison.
But remove yourself from the horrors of a global pandemic and plant your feet in the ground of 2017. Simpler times, and for documentarian Zanuck, the endpoint of this traipse through the Clapton life. For a documentary about a musician, Eric Clapton: A Life in Twelve Bars shows little interest in chasing those darker pockets which formed his musical triumphs. We are given glimpses into what made Layla the song it is today, the tragedies which formed his options when it came to writing songs on his solo ventures, but there is little more to it than that. Clapton is dissected under a tabloid spotlight all the while Zanuck attempts to remould how we view the legendary guitarist. What we learn most about Clapton is that, like every other musician who still holds their weight, he has a deep fascination with sound as a form of expression. How he delivers it is quite unlike what was around at the time.
What it gets right is the reduction of talking heads and a focus on how music can shape the form of a documentary. Clapton narrates his life through a voiceover and plenty of archival footage, pictures and claims as to what was occurring in the personal life of a musician always reviving his sound. From an early years inferiority complex to the fawning over the wife of best friend George Harrison, all the notes of tragedy are hit on and the inevitable links to artistic influence are made. But this is a rather flippant process. Eric Clapton: A Life in Twelve Bars does not hide the heartbreak. From the earliest moments, it shows life as a complex and troubled experience for Clapton.
Those talking heads are not industry experts waxing off about how masterful Clapton is as a musician. These are open discussions on some real heartbreaks which have formed the opinions, ugly or clear as they may be, of Clapton. The best thing you can take from Eric Clapton: A Life in Twelve Bars is a recommendation from the subject to listen to a B.B. King live album. Clapton is and will remain one of the finest guitarists around. Getting to know more about him is a natural path to follow – and the confusion he sifts through here is endearing. From playing along to old blues numbers to the death of his son, no stone is unturned in Eric Clapton: A Life in Twelve Bars. Clapton is an open book here and, of course, artistic liberties are taken to some degree. But it is as honest an assessment of Clapton as we are ever likely to get in a documentary.
