Review: EGO- THE MICHAEL GUDINSKI STORY

Biographies are stories like any other. They offer a sequence of events, provide context, and fashion sense from that. At their worst they raise names higher than the dissent and gossip can reach but at their best they can inspire. As villainous figures' life stories are usually packaged as history (imagine Hitler: Rags to Power) biographies of benign figures inevitably veer toward hagiography. This means the quality of a generally positive one gets measured against its readiness to paint the warts on. So, how does this one go?

Michael Gudinski is bound to Australian music history from the 1970s to his death in 2021. His record label Mushroom, while not a cartel, stuck its flag in every year of its first two decades with hits by local artists. He famously passed on megahit acts Men at Work and Cold Chisel, but nabbed Barnsey for the solo career and staged massive tours that talking heads of the lofty heights of Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel recall here. His dream of a gig to fill the MCG was realised as a fundraiser for the recent bushfires. Melbourne lockdowns? Take it online. Streaming killing off record sales? Get the live shows happening again. He could be seen at local sticky carpet pub venues or stadiums and for decades his was really the only name among many from the management, entrepreneurial side of of music.

And this is also a tale of capitalism, the easy come easy go life of risk and result that is more than once compared to horse racing. It's comforting to hear of decisions made too hastily or lessons learned from obstinacy but the overall impression this film seeks to leave is that of the love and respect that survives the man, rather than offer much in the way of discussion of those business decisions with consequences. Gudinski, against the wall, sold half his business to Rupert Murdoch's interests and then the rest. There were audible clucks and groans in the audience at that part. What we get is less a look at corporate acquisition than how the resilient Gudinski coped personally. The passage feels hasty.

It's harder to do this with fiction where you can speculate on the tightness of a third act or lament the absence of a character thread. In a documentary, and a biographical one, the brief is open to considering the representation and how it sits. There is very little counterpoint to the notion that Gudinski was a passionate, impulsive gambler in business. That his wins are reported more on the scale of fame than money serves to cleanse the achievement and what led to it as we witness the personal growth of a businessman.

Then, it's time to remember the title of this film. The first word refers to one of Gudinski's most significant success stories, Skyhooks and their astute hit song Ego is Not a Dirty Word. This appears on the timeline when appropriate but also plays us out. If you are a demographic outsider to the song it's worth a YouTube. On the surface, it sounds like the anthem of the people who were increasingly dubbed the Me Generation, self-entitled and disingenuous graspers of all around them, but it sings for those who might be better served against such. Gudinski's burgeoning ego is not in question but the things it helped facilitate are on show and they are many.

The form is typical of the format. A fame biography like this is expected to be a frenetic quilt of archival material and talking heads and that's what this is. That at no time is there any lag or padding evident in the hundred screen minutes is testament to the seriousness of the approach to the task. Whatever we might make of Michael Gudinski, we do feel as the credits roll that we have encountered him and the celebration that is at the heart of this telling of his life, if it skimps on the inevitable darker side of anyone who succeeded in a business that is all risk all the time, it at least gives us an enviable list of accomplishments and an impressive roll call of their beneficiaries. As hagiographies go, we don't get served a saint. There's plenty of evidence on show that we might well have enjoyed his company.

I can say that on Christmas day 1975 when I tore through the wrapping of my sister's gift of Skyhooks' Living in the Seventies LP and read the liner notes as I listened, I noted with a smile the eastern European name of the manager mentioned in the liner notes. As a possessor of such a name locked in a landscape of Anglo Celt ostracisers, it sparked a strange pride in me. It meant that when I'd see the owner of the name appear in interviews on Countdown and Flashez, I knew who he was. He didn't write songs like Greg Macainsh but he seemed have it taken care of. This film adds a few jigsaw pieces to that picture and feels a little like the setting of my hearing that record, a little nostalgia, a little extra information, a lot of engagement. Whinges aside, it works.