Donovan - Sunshine Superman - The Journey Of Donovan [2008]

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Product Details:

Studio: Spv

Region: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Format: Best of, Box set PAL

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Sales Rank: 6410

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Customer Reviews:

Wasted Opportunity (01 January 2009)
I really like 60's music of Donovan so I was excited to pick up this film. The real problem is that there is entirely too much of Donovan talking about his work and providing the narration for the film. He lionises his contribution in a way that comes across as arrogant and at times I found it really irritating. He takes himself entirely too seriously - particularly when he talks about his eastern philosophy. He becomes a cartoon hippy stereotype which is the one thing he tells us he does not want to be seen as. I mean come off it...the cosmic influence of the stars man! It makes the old Trevor and Simon 'Swing Your Pants' Jennifer Juniper song, which at the time horrorfied me, seem quite fair.

On the upside the music holds up well...particularly the archive footage. The new recordings seem very affected ad the expression particularly is strained. What this needed was a more neutral narrator and a more investigative approach to the film. I still dig the music though!

Unbelievably comprehensive (09 December 2008)
The main film here, at 3 hours in length, is an amazingly comprehensive look at the four decades of Donovan's career. I don't have any problem with the occasional split screens and don't understand the criticisms in some other reviews. If every piece of early footage unearthed here were shown in full, it would be 20+ hours at least. This is a documentary about the journey of Donovan, not an archive of everything he ever did. Yes, Donovan was much more important in the 60s, and yes he is totally delusional now about his place in popular music. There's nothing anyone can do about the former, and the latter is so extreme as to be funny - he seems to feel he invented almost everything. It is also not a psychological condition unique to him, being reasonably common among artists, particularly those now far enough from the cultural mainstream to feel an overwhelming urge for self-justification.

Having said that, this is clearly a must-buy for anyone remotely interested in Donovan, filmed over many years and continents in places of importance to his life, jam packed with rare and unseen archive footage, home movies, performances, insights from a wealth of his famous friends and collaborators and the man's own personal, often hilarious reminiscences and anecdotes about his amazing life. It's not perfect, but there has never been, and probably never again will be a film like this made about the flower power troubadour and Hurdy Gurdy Man.

An excellent DVD (25 October 2008)
This superb DVD contains an extensive docmentary on Donovan's career on disc 1 and some extensive extras on disc 2. The documentary is comprehensive and shows what a major figure he was in the sixties. The split screen business that others are mentioning really doesn't bother me. The present day Donovan does seem to have something to prove as far as his achievements are concermed, but this is all part of his amusing charm. Personally I do prefer his early recordings rather than his current mannered style, however there is plenty of footage of these on this set. A must-have purchase.

Those bloody frames (07 October 2008)
I have been there since the beginning and I love Donovan. This is a good film that could have been so much better if the director had a bit more experience. Instead he had to make some artistic statements, one being the dotted frames. I hate them and they disturb me so much that I cannot watch more than ten minutes at a time. I recognize the idea behind it, but it was a very bad idea so please release a version without that irritating frame.

Ballad of a crystal man (07 October 2008)
This could have been wonderful, as the film maker clearly had access to hours of film from the 60s.

Unfortunately, we see that footage only in glimpses and we have to put up with Donovan as he is today - sadly obsessed with inflating his place in the world, for most of both discs.

That he calls himself "Dr. Donovan Leitch" in the accompanying booklet (having got an honorary doctorate somewhere or other) is exemplary of his need to feel that he's achieved something. The cosmic waffle that he writes beforehand is just embarrassing.

He also 'performs' a couple of songs in a ridiculously mannered way - nothing natural remains, it seems, and any true humility seems to have departed long ago. Sad also, for one who loves the song "To Try for the Sun", to discover that Gypsy Dave was (and remains) a preening poseur.

But all this probably shouldn't deter anyone who knows how truly great Donovan's music was in the years up to (and including) "HMS Donovan", his last decent recording. In the sixties, he really did have the muse with him. There are glimpses of his genius here in old black and white film. Since then, he's done nothing worth having and probably that's at the root of his endless attempts to puff himself up. It's all very reminiscent of poor old Paul McCartney.

My hope is that someone will eventually release ALL of the 60s footage here, without the distraction of present-day Donovan trying to persuade us that he was some kind of gifted sage. Don, you weren't. The cosmic nonsense, the sapphic muse and the beat/bohemia stuff are really such a waste of your intelligence. But you were once a gifted singer and you wrote lovely songs when you focused on the natural world. Go there again one day.