Surfer, filmmaker, and multi-platinum singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is the subject of the appropriately titled documentary “SURFILMUSIC,” playing at the M.V. Film Center on August 16.
The film opens with Johnson performing a moving rendition of his song “Better Together” in an enormous arena to an enthusiastic crowd. Even if you are new to Johnson’s music, it’s clear that we are hearing a talented, heartfelt musician.
“SURFILMUSIC” was directed by Emmett Malloy, who’s co-managed Johnson for 25 years. He’s stitched together groundbreaking surf films he and Johnson made as young men with home movies, and candid present-day interviews filled with engaging reminiscences from the inner circle of the surfing buddies he began hanging with as a youth. Four-track cassette tapes and mini-disc sound provide much of the soundtrack.
The film traces Johnson’s fascinating progression from surfer to filmmaker to famous musician. Footage of Johnson as a very young child, growing up on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii, reflects his love for surfing, which began on the front of his dad’s surfboard, facing the oncoming waves. He recalls, too, making a flip book as a child about a surfing adventure, foreshadowing his film career.
The first turning point in the surfing prodigy’s life comes when he competes in the Banzai Pipeline Masters heat at 17 years old. He wipes out, hitting his head on a coral reef, requiring more than 100 stitches and temporarily suspending his surfing ambitions. Having played the guitar since he was 14, Johnson throws himself into his music during his recovery. There’s 1993 footage of his first band, the Limber Chicken, during high school. Later, we see him playing at keg parties while attending UC Santa Barbara, where he first starts writing music.
At Santa Barbara, Johnson switches his major from math to join the film and media studies department. Eventually, Malloy convinces Johnson to create what will become two classic 16mm surfing films — and the footage is astounding, exciting, capturing the exhilaration of riding the waves as they seem to wash over us.
Music remains integral to Johnson’s life, and we follow his meteoric rise to fame, which comes about with a mixture of immense talent and some really lucky breaks. Watching him perform, it’s clear that Johnson put the same intensity into his music as he did into his surfing.
The film ends with yet another inspiring and important chapter in his life, which I’ll leave for viewers to discover for themselves.
Throughout the film, despite all the adventure and fame, it’s clear that what Johnson treasures most is his friendships, wife, and family. In an interview in Forbes, he says about “SURFILMUSIC,” “I think the reason it really amounted to something more than just little clips was focusing on the friendship. I had lost a really close friend a couple of years ago as we kind of dove into the project. His name is Tamayo Perry. And he was one of my best friends. And he was on some of those surf trips with us. And he was just a major reason we all connected as friends. So, really, the idea of friendship and collaboration — and sort of this thing of friends seeing things in each other before we see them in ourselves sometimes — really started emerging and being the major theme.”
Ultimately, “SURFILMUSIC” is a feel-good experience with spine-tingling surfing footage, great music, and an engrossing story — a wonderful flick for summer fun.
“Jack Johnson: SURFILMUSIC” screens on August 16 at the M.V. Film Center. For tickets and more information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
