ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads
A one hour documentary on Robert Johnson on Netflix? Yes, please. I'll review the whole ReMastered series at a later point (so far I've only seen two) but this one deserves a more specific blurb since the topic is dear to my heart. So just to be clear, I knew a few anecdotes about Johnson's life before going into this (the crossroads, the spirituals to swing thing, the rediscovery) but nothing too specific. This documentary is built on the central "event" of Johnson going to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil and tries to assess whether it could be true. Which is kind of absurd when you say it flat out like that. So a guy disappears for a year and gets really good, what's the likeliest explanation? It's a bit strange because the documentary never flat out says "of course that's not the explanation", but the various experts interviewed give a likely interpretation of what might have happened in that year: Johnson finds a guitar mentor, plays his fingers out for a year, comes back, and church-going people - never ones to shy from prejudice - accuse him of devil bargaining. The movie is very well filmed, the experts are (for the most part) interesting and thoughtful, the music is (of course) amazing. Worth it if you're into blues or into the mythology of early blues.
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