“I Would Find Myself Wondering Why My Face Hurt So Much at the End of a Shoot Day, and It Was Because I’d Been Smiling the Whole Time”: Penny Lane on Listening to Kenny G

As with all of Penny Lane’s films, Listening to Kenny G, the idiosyncratic auteur’s TIFF-premiering, DOC NYC-opening, exploration of the beloved/reviled “smooth jazz” saxophonist and his globally ubiquitous sound (to this day “Going Home” signals closing time throughout China) turns a straightforward subject into an unexpected philosophical inquiry. In this case, Lane begins her journey down the G-hole with a simple question: Why does the bestselling instrumentalist of all time, our most famous living jazz musician, “make certain people really angry”? Using interviews with G as well as elite jazz critics and academics as well as archival footage, Lane arrives at some answers — what the director discovers, perhaps not so surprisingly in hindsight, says less about Kenny G than it does about us. Just prior to the doc’s HBO debut on December 2, Filmmaker caught up with Lane to find out more about the film – including, of course, what it was like to listen to a lot of Kenny G.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.