All of Those Voices: a tour doc that celebrates teamwork
All of Those Voices: a tour doc that celebrates teamwork
AotV catches the audience up on how Louis Tomlinson found his footing.
“Welcome to my world,” Louis Tomlinson says in a trailer for his documentary film, All of Those Voices. It’s reminiscent of the MTV days when celebrities would invite viewers into their abodes, marriages, cars, and tour buses. With One Direction heavily featured in the trailer, it’s easy to see what the draw was supposed to be, and who it’s for.
It’s also a great reminder of why I don’t like trailers. As paratexts, they serve a separate purpose from the text itself, they serve their own purpose and their own call to action. In this case, it was a beacon for any checked-out 1D fans, an invitation to be reintroduced to Tomlinson in 100 minutes.
Tomlinson doesn’t welcome viewers in the film, and 1D is used as a set point, a quick rewind to establish where Tomlinson was in 2015, after their last performance.
It doesn’t deliver on tea or hot goss, remaining even-handed even in its disclosures. There is no blame, no enemy arcs established, and no vindictiveness. He calls himself “naive” when talking about his early days in the industry, and in one way describes the fans as well, both those who worked hard to make up for the lack of industry support and those who assumed all was as it should be.
When Tomlinson reveals he was destroyed by the “hiatus” it isn’t putting blame on anyone. He was angry about the band ending, but it’s not personalized, directed anger.
Tomlinson has gone on record with not wanting to dig into his grief publicly, but his journey involves losses: it’s just the truth. This is circumvented by letting in family and friends to fill in the gaps and save him from having to present his insides to everyone.
The tragedies are laid out at the start of the film; the loss of the band and the betrayal that came with it are only the beginning. Johannah Deakin, Tomlinson’s mother, was a fandom presence since the start, communicating with fans on the daily, and one of his foremost cheerleaders. She encouraged him to continue performing but tragically passed from an aggressive cancer days before his first solo performance.
Years later, Tomlinson’s album cycle seemed poised to commence with the release of “Two of Us,” a song dedicated to his mother and her loss.
The very same week, Félicité Tomlinson, his 18-year-old sister, suddenly passed away, and the brakes were pulled yet again. And then, of course, COVID lockdowns and the indefinite global standstill that had to be reckoned with, halting a long-awaited world tour.
These issues aren’t dwelled on, simply acknowledged as realities to work through. There are a lot of things discarded to consolidate the storytelling, particularly noticeable to fans who have stuck around, including singles, label changes and troubles, and leaks. But this isn’t an exposé of the industry, it is about overcoming setbacks, not dwelling on them.
Many people were dissatisfied with the fans that were selected/covered, partially because there is much more than camping out before shows to the fandom, and people who aren’t known as stalkers to include. I agree to a degree, the Americans interviewed in South America were a poor choice, for example, and giving airspace to stalkers is always poor form.
But when it comes to fans dedicated to live shows, and trying to rack up concerts, that just seems like the new era to me. Following concert tours is not something to be ashamed of. From the Grateful Dead to Pearl Jam, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Brand New and so on—fans have a long history of banding together and touring along with the band. The current entertainment climate means that more acts will amass such ambitious fans, because that’s what’s encouraged.
It may simply be my bias, but it felt more like an acknowledgement of that culture building around his performances than anything. It’s why his festival has been such a success, after all.1
Charlie Lightening, the director of AotV, told WhyNow “it’s not a purely promotional piece, or anything that’s made to further someone’s career,” which is an odd claim to make when it feels exactly like that. It can chiefly be seen as an appetizer for Tomlinson’s world tour starting in less than a month, but there’s no shame in that.
It contains few staged moments, from what we can tell, but it’s still far from being cinéma vérité. After all, the environments we are shown are already semi-public, professional situations where the mask of celebrity is worn, as is even discussed in the film.
From chaotic moments on tour, in dressing rooms and green rooms, and on the bus to parties and hangouts with the band—these moments already have a tinge of unreality to them, when the presence of a camera means very little. Inserts from interviews push on the official narrative, piecing it together. There’s more behind it, we know that simply from what we know was excluded.
The set-up moments all revolve around family, and it’s what sticks out the most in my opinion. It is also a bold choice to include so much footage of his child when there has already been a documented history of harassment and threats, the non-stop pursuit of TMZ and the insatiable online sleuths and stalker fans trying to one-up each other.
It sticks out because his youngest siblings have been shielded from the public since the start, even when they were caught in set-up pap shots. Their omission from the film also suggests a layer of protection being put in place.
The history of tabloid fodder that Tomlinson and his family were for a chunk of time since 2015 paired with the publicity seeking from his child’s maternal side make it all the odder.
But I’ve read enough fan encounters that hinge on asking him about bandmates, girlfriends, siblings or child, and perhaps this is simply part of that equation. He was sold as a package deal, and perhaps that’s what he’s doing again. Perhaps he feels like it’s owed to those fans, or simply worth the downsides that accompany such public exposure, including fan accounts and all that entails.
In the parasocial swamp that we inhabit, there will always be why’s, but this I suspect will become relevant again at some point. Particularly with influencer kids now speaking on “their childhood being mined for content,” it seems inevitable that we’ll hear from these celebrity children as well at one point when they can process how unconventional their childhood was, and how many eyeballs across the globe have been trained on them since birth.
With the emphasis on family, it’s no surprise that Tomlinson’s new team is framed as a found family. During a yacht trip in Brazil, the entirety of the team gather around to listen to the final cut of the new album. When his backing band share how the reality of working with him exceeded their expectations, Tomlinson appears bashful when confronted directly with their appreciation. It comes off less like the insistence 1D being “as close as can be” and “like brothers” and more sincere, particularly contrasted with the brief cameos of Niall Horan and Liam Payne.
The fans are also repeatedly referred to as a reason he can carry on, but it’s something that comes off as hollow when you’ve been part of that indistinguishable mass of people. Are fans bottomless pits needing to be filled with content, having to be appeased, or have they been trying to make up for lacklustre management and industry? Does it make sense to thank the fans endlessly in a film that the fans themselves are tasked with promoting?
When fans have exceeded expectations, Tomlinson has gone on record to say they are unstoppable even in the face of an uncaring industry, them being him and the fans. But that collective only exists as long as the fans are willing to make up for the lack of investment from his own team. He might not realize it, and he might not be told about it, but it’s something that will have to be reckoned with sooner or later.
Until then, Tomlinson & co are promising some outstanding live performances, and that I have no doubt they will continue to deliver.
The omission of The Away From Home Festival is an odd one considering the film leans so heavily on Tomlinson’s love of performance and live music. An annual travelling festival, self-funded and started as a re-introduction to live music after lockdowns would’ve fit right in.