I’ve watched it now and reading your post I found your recollections very different to mine.
For one I thought the documentary made it very clear at numerous points that not only was it Steve’s band but that he was the main driving force that has pushed the band throughout the years.
Also it was mentioned that Bruce’s solo career wasn’t doing very well. During the part where it went over Bruce returning Steve and Rod both said Bruce’s career hadn’t gone as well as he’d planned and Steve also said he asked Bruce why he wanted to come back to which Bruce replied that he wanted to play bigger gigs again.
Please recall that the Early Days series never covered 1989 onwards - the series was axed before it got there. Because DVDs were no longer profitable after the 2010s. But also because Iron Maiden / Steve are singularly incapable of narrating - let alone reflecting on - the 1990s. I say that with confidence because aside from a few platitudes about TXF and Blaze, and Janick's comment on down-tuning for Blaze, there is almost nothing from them. I actually think Steve has blanked out of his mind some of his judgement calls that backfired, from Barnyard to Bruce to Blaze.
Whether one likes Burning Ambition or not, getting an independent crew was probably the only way to tell that story. I also slightly baulked at their use of the spitting incident. But it is symbolic of something alot of us have forgotten:
In the 1990s, many many Maiden fans actively hated Blaze with passion. OK they didn't spit on him. But they mocked him, slagged off TXF and then abandoned the band. I was on the official IM forum at the time and it was a civil war every day, for Blaze defenders like me. But I was 16 years old, and looking back I can't be critical of older fans who grew up with Maiden who now felt they had an inferior band lineup.
Maybe it was extreme to use the spitting footage, but Bruce leaving, followed by Harris choosing Blaze, cleaved the fanbase into pieces.
My question to you, about Burning Ambition -- like or dislike the film -- is whether you see value in something that isn't hagiography for once.
So, I watched the movie again yesterday. As I suspected,
@AncientMariner_Essex , I went into the cinema too biased by Steve's interview with Eddie Trunk where he doesn't speak too fondly about
Burning Ambition. It might have been wise to isolate myself from any news before the premier. I try to do that before any Maiden tour, and it works wonders. Anyway, watching it for a second time at home, I could see that you are right, they do say that Bruce's solo thing was not going well. I still think that the focus is a bit too dramatic over their decline in the USA, but that's how it was over there. In countries like Spain, however, they were still playing venues as big as the ones they played on
The Future Past Tour, but Rod also says something along those lines.
In the film it's also mentioned that Maiden is Harris' band, but still I find that his voice as the continuous driving force behind it, and his role as main songwriter and arranger, is somehow subdued.
Overall I appreciated the movie more this second time because I watched it without carrying heavy expectations. But that's the least that any film about Maiden could get out of me. It is a film about a band I'm crazy about, with nine of my heroes speaking and displaying their might on screen, so it's impossible not to, at least, enjoy it for what it is. That, however, doesn't change the many flaws I see in
Burning Ambition, but it gives them a more understandable perspective. The movie is about Iron Maiden's worldwide success and the global phenomenon into which the group has evolved. And I think that's probably not enough for many many fans like me.
@Helmuth Von Moltke , you wisely highlight that this time we don't get a hagiography, but I agree with
@GhostofCain : the end product does not deviate that much from that. Having an outsider telling the band's story only brings a few declarations that we wouldn't have found in the documentaries directed under Harris' watch. Basically:
- Rod chopped out a big line of coke when speaking with Bruce about auditioning for Maiden.
- Harris saying Bruce had to go and Rod saying he’s not going.
- Janick auditioning with Adrian’s gear and feeling that it was not cool.
- Adrian specifying that, apart from moments they were on stage, touring was "horrible".
That's about it. The excelent commemorative book
Infinite Dreams has been praised by Steve Harris, and it includes many statements —mainly from Bruce— questioning Steve's judgement that wouldn't have surfaced decades ago. In that sense, the book does a much better job at compiling Maiden's 50 years of existence than this movie. It's a Harris sanctioned product and I don't think it is hagiography.
The non-hagiographical approach of
Burning Ambition is not that revelatory. We still don’t get any new insights of what really went on during the toughest days of the band. And the 1990's segment of the movie only spreads through a few minutes. The
Infinite Dreams book proves that Iron Maiden / Steve are quite capable of narrating what went on in the Blaze era —although they won't include declarations in which some members, never Steve, said more bluntly that Blaze couldn't really handle Bruce's songs.
Although I don't think it deserves as many seconds as it gets, I do get what you
@Helmuth Von Moltke mention as a possible reason to include "the spitting incident" in order to illustrate what we could call The Blaze Civil War. In 1995, my brother and I were the only people we knew that were into Maiden, let alone into the Blaze-era Maiden. We come from a rock and roll and punk underground scene, and back then Maiden were just laughed at. We got so mocked. Everyone was speaking about the MC5 and the like. But as much as we loved that music, my brother and I couldn't help getting more and more hooked on Maiden. The rest of the world around us found it absolutely ridiculous. And that's the thing in which
Burning Ambition succeeds: explaining to
everyone how much respect Iron Maiden deserves.
None of the above, however, change the fact that the movie doesn't tell much about the band members, besides Harris working for some time as a street sweeper. Bruce gets four minutes when he joins. Adrian and Davey, a mere 30 seconds to explain their chemistry. Nothing about their background. Showing, for example, Murray's upbringing in a severely poor household, Steve being forced out of Smiler, and designing the band's logo, would have added a lot of depth and authenticity to the story. But we don't get anything of that sort.
The movie also ignores Dennis Stratton, Martin Birch, the recording of any of Maiden's 17 albums, the songwriting processes... and the list "goes on, and on, and on, and oooooon".
I did love seeing Bruce with a Dead Kennedys t-shirt:
Nazi punks fuck off!
