Ray Pride

"Shut Up and Sing!" is Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck's stirring documentary about three years in the life of the Dixie Chicks: is this the wilderness or a new world for them? Before seeing "Shut Up," I'd heard the Dixie Chicks' music and seen stills of the three members, and thought that Natalie Maines was striking but fairly goofy-looking, but on screen, she's a fiery singularity: such presence and passion, even when slouched across a couch listening to one more marketing strategy, is indelible. There's no condescension in wanting to call this trio "patriots with ponytails": you just don't expect this level of informed and indelible dudgeon from a musician, a mother, a wife, a political activist, who's also seen on screen on the phone consulting with her psychic after a particularly rotten threat. She calls herself a "big mouth" and she's glorious. Kopple and Peck's brilliance lies in standing back: finding fierce central figures and following them through the brackish backlash to Maines' extemporaneous comment at London's Shepherd's Bush venue in 2003 that she's ashamed that George W. Bush is from Texas (a statement equally offensive to others, considering that the New Haven-born Bush is a Texas-transplanted carpetbagger). So many things are right about "Shut Up and Sing," but the incendiary heart is mainly Maines': a central scene shows the group and their manager's reaction to and precautions against a death threat in Dallas (didn't John F. Kennedy get a few of those?). The police have brought a photograph. (The man's features are blurred on screen.) Out of Maines' mouth: "He's kind of cute. He's good-looking. He wants to kill me?" Complicated, loyal, devoted, troops-supporting, nationalistic and one hell of a responsible, respectable grown-up: I know there are more Americans like her.

"Shut Up and Sing" Opens Friday at River East, Pipers Alley, Cantera and Barrington.

(2006-11-14)

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