The film makers behind the upcoming Oasis tour documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger have revealed the lengths they went to ensure they were invisible to their subjects.
And by ‘invisible’ they mean literally. In the current issue of Billboard, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace have explained that they hid a camera rig in the London studio where Noel and Liam met and rehearsed for the first time in 15 years. “I don’t think Liam even realised there were cameras there for the first week,” Southern says.
The duo filmed the rehearsals and every gig on the band’s reunion tour, as well as the Gallaghers’ first joint interview in over 20 years. But whilst the two brothers are undoubtedly the stars of the show, almost as important are the fans, who had waited so long for their reconciliation.
“When the lights came up at the end of the first concert in Cardiff,” Southern explains, “we have a sequence where you just see people looking shell-shocked, like they’ve been through every possible emotion. Seeing that in real time... we were like, ‘We knew this was going to be big, but it’s on a different level emotionally than what we’d thought.’
“Then, as the film progresses, you see the music bringing (the brothers) together,” Southern continues. “The [fan] reaction is a huge catalyst in where they end up in terms of their relationship by the end of the film.”
Southern and Lovelace said that they had prepared for “any eventuality” before filming began (it’s easy to forget that many scoffed that the Gallaghers would be able to make it through an entire world tour without the whole thing exploding in a familiar familial conflagration). But of course, in the end, both the film and the fans were provided with a happy ending. “Our hope was to make a film about reconciliation and forgiveness,” Southern says, “and I think it’s ultimately about those things - and the breakthrough moments that happened throughout.”
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger will get a cinema release on 9 September. But before then it premieres at the Venice International Film Festival. Later this year it will be available for streaming on Disney+ and in the US, both Disney+ and Hulu.
