You wait all year — or the year’s 10 days so far, which is long enough for British pop addicts — and then two rockumentaries come at once. Lili Fini Zanuck’s Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars is not exactly a bus. It’s more a cart without a horse. It tells us everything we need to know about this rock guitarist except why we need to know it. Surely Zanuck could have spared five minutes — out of 135 — to appraise or analyse the man’s music? What’s unique about Clapton? How did he achieve that uniqueness? What separates the prodigy from the twangling herd? . . .
Source: Nigel Andrews