From the Sky Down
Encyclopedia
From the Sky Down is a 2011 documentary film
directed by Davis Guggenheim
about rock
band U2
and the production of their 1991 album Achtung Baby
. The film documents the album's difficult recording period, the band members' relationships, and the group's creative process. Guggenheim, who was commissioned by U2 to create the film to commemorate Achtung Babys 20th anniversary, spent several months in 2011 developing the documentary. Archival footage and stills from the recording sessions appear in From the Sky Down, along with unreleased scenes from the group's 1988 motion picture Rattle and Hum
. For the documentary, the band were filmed during a return visit to Hansa Studios in Berlin where the album was partly recorded, and during rehearsals in Winnipeg for the Glastonbury Festival 2011
.
The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival
on September 8, 2011, the first time in the festival's history that a documentary was screened as the opening film. The following month, it was broadcast on television and commercially released in the 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby. Standalone copies of the film will be released on December 12, 2011 on Blu-ray and DVD
. From the Sky Down has received mixed reviews from critics.
, U2
produced a motion picture and companion album titled Rattle and Hum
that was subject to a critical backlash. The band's exploration of American music
for the project was variously labelled as "pretentious" and "misguided and bombastic". The group's high exposure and their reputation for being overly serious led to accusations of grandiosity and self-righteousness. In addition to the criticism they faced, U2 dealt with internal creative dissatisfaction; lead vocalist Bono
believed they were musically unprepared for their success, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best". Towards the end of the Lovetown Tour
in 1989, Bono announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".
Wishing to reinvent themselves and seeking inspiration from German reunification
, the group de-camped to Hansa Studios in Berlin in October 1990 with producers Daniel Lanois
and Brian Eno
to record Achtung Baby
. The sessions, however, were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. Weeks of tension and slow progress nearly took their toll, as the group considered breaking up, but they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One
". With improved morale, the group completed the album in Dublin in 1991. In November, Achtung Baby was released to critical acclaim. Sonically, it incorporated influences from alternative rock
, electronic dance music
, and industrial music
of the time. Thematically, it was a more introspective and personal record; it was darker, yet at times more flippant than the band's previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour
were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, which replaced their earnest public image with a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one. Achtung Baby has been one of the group's most commercially successful records, selling 18 million copies.
d the record in several formats in October 2011. Leading up the anniversary, the band were unsure how much attention to pay to a past album while still an active recording act. Guitarist The Edge
said, "How big a deal do we make of an anniversary when we're in the middle of what we're doing now? We had a hard time figuring that out. We're not a heritage act. We're still very active. But this record was so pivotal that we felt it was OK to revisit it." Director Davis Guggenheim
was subsequently commissioned by the band to make a film about Achtung Baby in six months. As a fan of U2 since his youth and having previously collaborated with The Edge for the 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud
, Guggenheim obliged. His aim for the film was to explain how U2 managed to remain together for so long, whereas most rock groups were undone by internal conflict; he described the band's longevity as "fighting against that law of physics". Guggenheim also sought to tell the story of how the band transformed themselves musically over the course of Achtung Babys recording sessions.
While U2 were on the South American leg of their U2 360° Tour
in March–April 2011, Guggenheim requested complete access to the band's archives. To his surprise, they complied. While researching footage at their archives in Dublin, the director found unused video filmed for Rattle and Hum. Of it, he said, "You fall on your knees looking at this stuff—it's so rare and beautiful." Some of the footage included scenes of Bono throwing a tantrum in a dressing room and the band performing in a blues
club. While the group were in Santiago, Chile
, Guggenheim conducted "sound-only" interviews with the band members that comprise much of the film. After their touring obligations in South America ended, the band met Guggenheim in Berlin for two days in May "to go back to the scene of the crime". They were filmed at Hansa Studios performing songs from the album and speaking to Guggenheim in long individual interviews. Additionally, the group were filmed touring Berlin and driving a Trabant
, an automobile that previously appeared in the album artwork for Achtung Baby and was used in the lighting system of the Zoo TV Tour.
The band expected a less personal treatment for the film and were at times uncomfortable with the extent to which Guggenheim probed into their history. The Edge summarized the band's thoughts: "We felt uncomfortable with where Davis went, but it's all there on the album. He just did a bit of delving." Responding to the band's concerns, Guggenheim said, "I tell the story that's in front of me, warts and all. In the rock 'n' roll business, it's about adding layers. My process strips layers away. Rock stars are more comfortable creating an aura and mystique." Despite U2's discomfort, they allowed Guggenheim to have creative control over the film. He remarked, "They said from the beginning, we want you to make the movie that you want to make and they let me the movie I wanted to make. It was pretty astounding. I think part of it is the trust we gained doing It Might Get Loud, they sort of let me have a free hand." Bono said that it was least involved the band had ever been in a U2 project. Additional filming took place on May 27 at Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg during the band's rehearsals for the Glastonbury Festival 2011
. A rough cut of the movie was shown to the group in July, much to their satisfaction. According to Guggenheim, "They were over the moon. They loved it." The band did not ask for any changes to the film but did ask that it be shortened for length, which Guggenheim agreed to do.
(TIFF) on September 8, 2011. It marked the first time in the festival's history that a documentary was shown as the opening film. Bono, The Edge, and Guggenheim attended the premiere and appeared on stage prior to the film's showing to make brief remarks. The first television broadcast of From the Sky Down was held in the UK on BBC Television
as part of the Imagine
series on October 9, 2011, while the first American broadcast was on October 29, 2011 on the television network Showtime. Two days later, the film was commercially released on DVD
in the "Über Deluxe" and "Super Deluxe" editions of the 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby. Distribution rights to the film in Canada were acquired by BBC Worldwide Canada
, who licensed it for broadcast on Super Channel on November 19, 2011. Standalone copies of From the Sky Down will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12, 2011 and will contain bonus footage of the band performing at Hansa Studios and a question-and-answer session with Bono, The Edge, and Guggenheim at TIFF.
of Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an enthusiastic review, describing it as "one of the most transcendent close-up looks at the process of creating rock & roll I've ever seen." In his opinion, the film was a "stirring testament to what it really means when four people in this world can create magical things because they band together." Hank Steuver of The Washington Post
called it an "intriguing" documentary that "becomes a revealing and even enlightening meditation on the mystery of why some bands stay together and some don't." The review said the film is "refreshingly blunt and beautifully assembled", and it praised Guggenheim for asking the band tough questions about that period in their history. Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail
gave the film a three-out-of-four-star rating, calling it an "essential companion piece" to the reissue of Achtung Baby. Wheeler wrote that "the process of U2 dreaming itself a new fashion while struggling to get its joy back is tightly and adroitly explored". Radio broadcaster Alan Cross
wrote that the viewer will "come out with a new appreciation of what it takes to be U2". Cross enjoyed the scenes in which the band revisit old DAT
tapes demonstrating the evolution of the songs "Mysterious Ways
" and "One", along with the animated scenes. Drew McWeeny of HitFix
wrote that the documentary is not a "complete record" of Achtung Babys conception, but that it "offers fans a rare glimpse at the process behind U2's music, and for non-fans, it attempts to set a context in which they can appreciate what it is that U2 accomplished". Like other reviewers, he highlighted the scene in which the band revisits the recording of "One" as one of the film's most important. McWeeny ended his review by saying, "This may not be everything I wanted from the movie, but it's solid, and the glimpse we get of real creative alchemy is impressive, indeed."
Other reviewers were more critical. Neil Genzlinger
of The New York Times
said the film "has a few segments that get beyond platitudes". He enjoyed the sequences that highlighted individual songs but noted the documentary "doesn't have much in the way of full songs". Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times
called From the Sky Down a "procedural look" at the album's inception. Although he enjoyed Bono's humorous insights, Zeitchik said that "much of the movie is abstract, insider stuff about how he and others find inspiration". John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter
pointed out the limited scope of the film, calling it "neither a comprehensive portrait nor one of those tossed-off featurettes that would be at home only as the filler for a commemorative Achtung Baby boxed set". Commenting on Guggenheim's filmmaking style, DeFore judged that some of his attempts to make the film more "movie-ish" failed to enhance the subject material. In the reviewer's opinion, this gave the "impression of a filmmaker who can tell this story competently but isn't quite up to making a lasting film about one of rock history's most successful bands". Steven Hyden of The A.V. Club
gave the film a C+, calling it "occasionally enlightening but mostly frustrating". The review lamented the lack of coverage of most of the album's songs, and in Hyden's opinion, it was ironic that the band was trying to live down the "ego-inflating" Rattle and Hum in a film that he also considered "ego-inflating".
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
directed by Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...
about rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
and the production of their 1991 album Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative...
. The film documents the album's difficult recording period, the band members' relationships, and the group's creative process. Guggenheim, who was commissioned by U2 to create the film to commemorate Achtung Babys 20th anniversary, spent several months in 2011 developing the documentary. Archival footage and stills from the recording sessions appear in From the Sky Down, along with unreleased scenes from the group's 1988 motion picture Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by rock band U2 and companion rockumentary directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs...
. For the documentary, the band were filmed during a return visit to Hansa Studios in Berlin where the album was partly recorded, and during rehearsals in Winnipeg for the Glastonbury Festival 2011
Glastonbury Festival 2011
The 2011 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts was held from 22–26 June 2011. Tickets for the festival went on sale from 9 am on Sunday 3 October 2010, over 37 weeks before the festival was set to begin, with a deposit of £50 being paid, while the whole cost of a ticket is £195...
.
The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival
2011 Toronto International Film Festival
The 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival, was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 8 and September 18, 2011.Buenos Aires, Argentina was selected to be showcased for the 2011 City to City programme. The opening film was From the Sky Down, a documentary film about the band...
on September 8, 2011, the first time in the festival's history that a documentary was screened as the opening film. The following month, it was broadcast on television and commercially released in the 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby. Standalone copies of the film will be released on December 12, 2011 on Blu-ray and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. From the Sky Down has received mixed reviews from critics.
Background
After the commercial and critical success of their 1987 album The Joshua TreeThe Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, U2 aimed for a harder-hitting sound on The Joshua...
, U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
produced a motion picture and companion album titled Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by rock band U2 and companion rockumentary directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs...
that was subject to a critical backlash. The band's exploration of American music
American popular music
American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
for the project was variously labelled as "pretentious" and "misguided and bombastic". The group's high exposure and their reputation for being overly serious led to accusations of grandiosity and self-righteousness. In addition to the criticism they faced, U2 dealt with internal creative dissatisfaction; lead vocalist Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
believed they were musically unprepared for their success, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best". Towards the end of the Lovetown Tour
Lovetown Tour
The Lovetown Tour was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2, which took place in late 1989 and early 1990.-Itinerary:It was limited in scope, but did try to reach places that their 1987 Joshua Tree Tour had missed, all the while avoiding the United States entirely.The tour's opening night was on...
in 1989, Bono announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".
Wishing to reinvent themselves and seeking inspiration from German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, the group de-camped to Hansa Studios in Berlin in October 1990 with producers Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
to record Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative...
. The sessions, however, were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. Weeks of tension and slow progress nearly took their toll, as the group considered breaking up, but they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One
One (U2 song)
"One" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby, and it was released as the record's third single in March 1992. It was recorded at three recording studios, Hansa Ton Studios, Elsinore, and Windmill Lane Studios...
". With improved morale, the group completed the album in Dublin in 1991. In November, Achtung Baby was released to critical acclaim. Sonically, it incorporated influences from alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
, and industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
of the time. Thematically, it was a more introspective and personal record; it was darker, yet at times more flippant than the band's previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour
Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993...
were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, which replaced their earnest public image with a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one. Achtung Baby has been one of the group's most commercially successful records, selling 18 million copies.
Production
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Achtung Babys original release, U2 reissueReissue
A reissue is the repeated issue of a published work. In common usage, it refers to an album which has been released at least once before and is released again, sometimes with alterations or additions....
d the record in several formats in October 2011. Leading up the anniversary, the band were unsure how much attention to pay to a past album while still an active recording act. Guitarist The Edge
The Edge
David Howell Evans , more widely known by his stage name The Edge , is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record...
said, "How big a deal do we make of an anniversary when we're in the middle of what we're doing now? We had a hard time figuring that out. We're not a heritage act. We're still very active. But this record was so pivotal that we felt it was OK to revisit it." Director Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...
was subsequently commissioned by the band to make a film about Achtung Baby in six months. As a fan of U2 since his youth and having previously collaborated with The Edge for the 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud
It Might Get Loud
It Might Get Loud is a documentary by filmmaker Davis Guggenheim. It explores the history of the electric guitar, focusing on the careers and styles of Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White. The film received a wide release on August 14, 2009 in the U.S...
, Guggenheim obliged. His aim for the film was to explain how U2 managed to remain together for so long, whereas most rock groups were undone by internal conflict; he described the band's longevity as "fighting against that law of physics". Guggenheim also sought to tell the story of how the band transformed themselves musically over the course of Achtung Babys recording sessions.
While U2 were on the South American leg of their U2 360° Tour
U2 360° Tour
The U2 360° Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, the tour visited stadiums from 2009 through 2011. It was named for a stage configuration that allowed the audience to almost completely surround the stage...
in March–April 2011, Guggenheim requested complete access to the band's archives. To his surprise, they complied. While researching footage at their archives in Dublin, the director found unused video filmed for Rattle and Hum. Of it, he said, "You fall on your knees looking at this stuff—it's so rare and beautiful." Some of the footage included scenes of Bono throwing a tantrum in a dressing room and the band performing in a blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
club. While the group were in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
, Guggenheim conducted "sound-only" interviews with the band members that comprise much of the film. After their touring obligations in South America ended, the band met Guggenheim in Berlin for two days in May "to go back to the scene of the crime". They were filmed at Hansa Studios performing songs from the album and speaking to Guggenheim in long individual interviews. Additionally, the group were filmed touring Berlin and driving a Trabant
Trabant
The Trabant is a car that was produced by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Sachsen. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to countries both inside and outside the communist bloc...
, an automobile that previously appeared in the album artwork for Achtung Baby and was used in the lighting system of the Zoo TV Tour.
The band expected a less personal treatment for the film and were at times uncomfortable with the extent to which Guggenheim probed into their history. The Edge summarized the band's thoughts: "We felt uncomfortable with where Davis went, but it's all there on the album. He just did a bit of delving." Responding to the band's concerns, Guggenheim said, "I tell the story that's in front of me, warts and all. In the rock 'n' roll business, it's about adding layers. My process strips layers away. Rock stars are more comfortable creating an aura and mystique." Despite U2's discomfort, they allowed Guggenheim to have creative control over the film. He remarked, "They said from the beginning, we want you to make the movie that you want to make and they let me the movie I wanted to make. It was pretty astounding. I think part of it is the trust we gained doing It Might Get Loud, they sort of let me have a free hand." Bono said that it was least involved the band had ever been in a U2 project. Additional filming took place on May 27 at Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg during the band's rehearsals for the Glastonbury Festival 2011
Glastonbury Festival 2011
The 2011 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts was held from 22–26 June 2011. Tickets for the festival went on sale from 9 am on Sunday 3 October 2010, over 37 weeks before the festival was set to begin, with a deposit of £50 being paid, while the whole cost of a ticket is £195...
. A rough cut of the movie was shown to the group in July, much to their satisfaction. According to Guggenheim, "They were over the moon. They loved it." The band did not ask for any changes to the film but did ask that it be shortened for length, which Guggenheim agreed to do.
Release
From the Sky Down premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival2011 Toronto International Film Festival
The 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival, was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 8 and September 18, 2011.Buenos Aires, Argentina was selected to be showcased for the 2011 City to City programme. The opening film was From the Sky Down, a documentary film about the band...
(TIFF) on September 8, 2011. It marked the first time in the festival's history that a documentary was shown as the opening film. Bono, The Edge, and Guggenheim attended the premiere and appeared on stage prior to the film's showing to make brief remarks. The first television broadcast of From the Sky Down was held in the UK on BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
as part of the Imagine
Imagine (TV series)
Imagine is a wide ranging arts series first broadcast on BBC One in 2003, hosted and executive produced by Alan Yentob. Each series usually consists of 4 to 7 episodes, each on a different topic...
series on October 9, 2011, while the first American broadcast was on October 29, 2011 on the television network Showtime. Two days later, the film was commercially released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the "Über Deluxe" and "Super Deluxe" editions of the 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby. Distribution rights to the film in Canada were acquired by BBC Worldwide Canada
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
, who licensed it for broadcast on Super Channel on November 19, 2011. Standalone copies of From the Sky Down will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12, 2011 and will contain bonus footage of the band performing at Hansa Studios and a question-and-answer session with Bono, The Edge, and Guggenheim at TIFF.
Reception
Critics' reviews of From the Sky Down have been mixed. Owen GleibermanOwen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an enthusiastic review, describing it as "one of the most transcendent close-up looks at the process of creating rock & roll I've ever seen." In his opinion, the film was a "stirring testament to what it really means when four people in this world can create magical things because they band together." Hank Steuver of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
called it an "intriguing" documentary that "becomes a revealing and even enlightening meditation on the mystery of why some bands stay together and some don't." The review said the film is "refreshingly blunt and beautifully assembled", and it praised Guggenheim for asking the band tough questions about that period in their history. Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
gave the film a three-out-of-four-star rating, calling it an "essential companion piece" to the reissue of Achtung Baby. Wheeler wrote that "the process of U2 dreaming itself a new fashion while struggling to get its joy back is tightly and adroitly explored". Radio broadcaster Alan Cross
Alan Cross
' is a Canadian radio broadcaster and a writer on music. Alan’s obsession with music began at age six when his grandmother gave him a transistor radio—an old Lloyds—which spawned an all-consuming fascination with things that came over airwaves...
wrote that the viewer will "come out with a new appreciation of what it takes to be U2". Cross enjoyed the scenes in which the band revisit old DAT
Digital Audio Tape
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. As...
tapes demonstrating the evolution of the songs "Mysterious Ways
Mysterious Ways (song)
"Mysterious Ways" is a song by the rock band U2. It is the eighth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and was released as the album's second single on 25 November 1991. The song reached the top ten of the singles charts in several countries, including Ireland, where it went to number one...
" and "One", along with the animated scenes. Drew McWeeny of HitFix
HitFix
HitFix, or the HitFix.com is an entertainment news website that launched in December 2008 specializing in breaking entertainment news, insider information and providing reviews and critiques of film, music and television...
wrote that the documentary is not a "complete record" of Achtung Babys conception, but that it "offers fans a rare glimpse at the process behind U2's music, and for non-fans, it attempts to set a context in which they can appreciate what it is that U2 accomplished". Like other reviewers, he highlighted the scene in which the band revisits the recording of "One" as one of the film's most important. McWeeny ended his review by saying, "This may not be everything I wanted from the movie, but it's solid, and the glimpse we get of real creative alchemy is impressive, indeed."
Other reviewers were more critical. Neil Genzlinger
Neil Genzlinger
Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic. He frequently writes for The New York Times, where he is a copy editor....
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said the film "has a few segments that get beyond platitudes". He enjoyed the sequences that highlighted individual songs but noted the documentary "doesn't have much in the way of full songs". Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called From the Sky Down a "procedural look" at the album's inception. Although he enjoyed Bono's humorous insights, Zeitchik said that "much of the movie is abstract, insider stuff about how he and others find inspiration". John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
pointed out the limited scope of the film, calling it "neither a comprehensive portrait nor one of those tossed-off featurettes that would be at home only as the filler for a commemorative Achtung Baby boxed set". Commenting on Guggenheim's filmmaking style, DeFore judged that some of his attempts to make the film more "movie-ish" failed to enhance the subject material. In the reviewer's opinion, this gave the "impression of a filmmaker who can tell this story competently but isn't quite up to making a lasting film about one of rock history's most successful bands". Steven Hyden of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the film a C+, calling it "occasionally enlightening but mostly frustrating". The review lamented the lack of coverage of most of the album's songs, and in Hyden's opinion, it was ironic that the band was trying to live down the "ego-inflating" Rattle and Hum in a film that he also considered "ego-inflating".