For Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, the directors behind the new Oasis reunion documentary, Don't Look Back in Anger, the first rule of shooting the band's return was simple: Don't get in the way.
Going into rehearsals in London last summer — the first time Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher had spent any real time together in 16 years — the crew knew the stakes were (almost) as high for them as they were for the band.
Oasis split in 2009 after years of tension between the brothers, culminating in an altercation at Paris' Rock en Seine festival, where Noel quit the band. In the years that followed, the brothers became estranged, regularly trading barbs in the press and on social media. That history made the prospect of documenting their first extended period back together a particularly delicate proposition, as Southern tells Billboard U.K.
“We were very conscious that we didn't want to be the people that messed up the Oasis reunion,†he explains, speaking at the London junket for the documentary. “We didn't want to be the film crew that got in the way, or interfered, or frustrated them or pissed them off!â€
The film, which was written by Stephen Knight (Peaky Blinders, House of Guinness) and follows the Gallaghers' Live '25 reunion tour across last year's global stadium run, is in cinemas now and was hailed by Billboard U.K. as “spectacular, filled with emotional revelations and stunning tour footage.†It debuted to an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 5, and was followed by a packed London premiere on Monday (Sept. 7), attended by the band plus Johnny Marr, Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten, soccer player Jack Grealish and more.
Lovelace and Southern — whose previous credits include LCD Soundsystem's Shut Up and Play the Hits and Blur's No Distance Left to Run — responded to the pressure of documenting Oasis by “effectively disappearing,†they say. To avoid changing the mood of those first rehearsals, they decided the band wouldn't see the crew at all.
“The first decision we made was that they wouldn't see us, or meet us, or see any of our crew for those six weeks of rehearsals,†Southern explains. “We arrived super early, long before any of [the band] would, and set the cameras off. We instead hid in a disgusting portacabin with no air conditioning, and monitored them from afar each day.â€
On the road, the approach shifted. The pair shot the shows in large format, building what Southern calls an “incredibly immersive†concert film designed for maximum volume, with cameras plunging viewers into the crowd and slipping backstage to capture the brothers' nerves before key moments — including a goose-bumps-inducing sequence of Noel walking around anxiously backstage before the tour's first show in Cardiff, Wales.
The film eventually builds to a joint interview with Liam and Noel, their first in 21 years, which the directors are reluctant to give away too much about. “People will really enjoy seeing them at ease with each other, reminiscing, having a laugh,†Southern says. “I think they'll be quite disarmed by how candid they are, and how they've softened. With age and wisdom, they actually say some things about each other that you might not expect to hear coming from them.â€
Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger is in cinemas now.
