Customer Reviews

The Nomi Song

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I have been waiting literally half my life for this movie. I first saw Klaus Nomi performing in Urgh! A Music War when I was 14 years old( like most other teens in small towns across America , Nomi wasn't exactly playing for them in the club down the street ) and have been fascinated ever since. By the time I had gotten my hands on his two albums, he was dead and gone and largely forgotten, one of the first victims of AIDS in the world of the arts. His music literally defies desciption. It is all over the place and very difficult to put into a category ( this is discussed at length in this movie .) If you have only a passing knowledge or curiousity of this extraordinary entertainer, you must see this film. If you are a fan, it will be a dream come true, like it was for me, and will fill in all the holes in the Nomi story. It is his life, told with pictures, anecdotes, lots of concert footage, old interviews with Klaus himself and new interviews with those who knew him before he became famous. A MUST SEE.

Caught this film a couple of months ago at an independent film workshop and could hardly hold back the tears. I saw Klaus Nomi in Columbus, Ohio during his whirlwind tour of the Midwest and still have my red and black button with the Nomi profile. It sure was different back then-the folks in Akron were so enchanted by this strange little man that he ended up on the cover of the Akron Beacon-Journal Sunday magazine-holding a huge oversized old boot from a flea market and smiling the most bemused little grin of astonishment. Through the interviews and private film footage on this DVD we get to see a little bit of the man beneath the make-up. The segments in Aunt Trudi's dollhouse almost broke my heart as she talked about what a happy little boy he had been and how all the children would come running when he came for a visit-contrasted with the way he died-alone and friendless as did so many others in the early 80's.
Buy this as a souvenir of a time that was filled with so many possibilities and so much tragedy. Klaus's life was certainly filled to the brim with both.

My husband and I were eagerly anticipating THE NOMI SONG, Andrew Horn's by-turns witty and poignant documentary about Klaus Nomi, the German singer/performance artist with the multi-octave range who took New York and then the world by storm for a brief, exciting period in the late 1970s and '80s. Nomi, with his outer space alien persona, was so avant-garde that even the avant-garde set wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but loved him all the same before his tragic death from AIDS (this was back when AIDS was still new and scary and known as "gay cancer"). Our 8-year-old daughter liked Nomi's "high, high voice" and kooky costumes. We adults liked the interviews with Ann Magnuson and other scene-makers from the era, as well as the chance to see such rarities as Nomi's 1979 performance with David Bowie on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (which I remember seeing during its live broadcast back in the day). THE NOMI SONG also sports a treasure trove of DVD extras, including full-length musical performances, an Easter Egg feature for part-time pastry chef Nomi's lime tart recipe, and Lou Christie talking enthusiastically about Nomi's cover of his classic "Lightning Strikes Again" (Christie kinda starts talking about himself, too, but it's interesting and endearing). If you like 1980s New Wave music and all things offbeat, THE NOMI SONG is well worth seeking out.

I knew Klaus in 70's New York, and am delighted to see him preserved for other generations in this wonderful documentary. Particularly pleased by two things: there's lots of wonderful performance footage of him, so you can get a clear idea of what his stage persona was all about. And the film also shows his sweet side, literally and figuratively. Klaus, underneath the persona he so brilliant constructed, was actually rather shy, very dear, and was a TERRIFIC pastry chef -- how wonderful that talent's documented here, too! Highly recommended to anyone with even a casual interest in the downtown art scene of thirty years ago.

Don't say you're not interested in Klaus Nomi. If you never heard of him, it doesn't matter. If you want to hear something unique and extraordinary, here's Nomi, whose genre-defying, mind-bending mixture of styles is simply captivating. And here's a documentary about his tragic short life, which itself is as captivating as his songs.

Born Klaus Sperber in Germany, Nomi became part of New Wave movement in New York in the late 70s. And his eccentric style is still amazing to see. Tightly clad in the bizarre costumes coming directly from grade-B sci-fi films with completely white-wasked face, Nomi appears as if giving an oracle, and when he starts to sing, what a song! His is curious blend of pop and opera with beautiful falsetto. He is literally a singing alien.

This documentary consists of the interviews with those how knew Nomi. What is revealed here may not be surprising to the viewers who have some knowledge about Nomi, but to the people like me, who are interested in the 70-80s, the comments and footages about him and the surrounding NY club scenes are still precious. Sure, most of the footages are private films with bad image and sound quality, but they still vividly bring the feeling of the times to life.

Probably the most interesting moment in the film would be the song of David Bowie on Saturaday Night Live in 1979, in which Klaus Nomi appears one of the backsingers. Clearly this is, or should be, the turning of Nomi's career, and after this point, many interviewees, quite honest about Nomi's complex personality, are not always kind to his behaviors.

Though Nomi is gone forever, his originality can be still felt if you watch the film. With the lack of some materials (for instance, Bowie or the artists in Japan who briefly worked with him), and with less than satisfactory comments from Nomi himself, 'The Nomi Song' may not be as incisive as it should be, but still intriguing even for non-fans of Nomi. Watch this, and buy his CDs if you want something very different.

I first came across Klaus Nomi while watching Urgh, A Music War--though tough to find now, this movie was seminal in my days of high school freakism, in that I got to see others who were probably even weirder than I was, for they were willing to get up on a stage in front of others and be as weird as they wanted to be.

And who was much weirder than Klaus? A German cabaret performer from the dark side of Mars, Klaus started the Nomi movement--new wave freaks who invited alien invasion and world annihilation as long as they got into space. Whether this was simply a metaphoric, artistic philosophy or actual belief is up for debate. As wild as Klaus looked, this man had a falsetto that was absolutely MESMERIZING. Whether imitating Maria Callas, or strutting about like a New Wave icon to the Nth degree, Klaus was without doubt a stand-out, and Andrew Horn tries to take on identifying the life and art of the German immigrant, right through his brief stardom that started with backing David Bowie on Saturday Night Live to his brief recording career in France and eventual death. Horn brings together many who were close to Klaus (well, as close as anyone could get) to reminisce about the man.

But this documentary feels somewhat superficial and stylized to the point of falling short of substance by the end. Perhaps this was the deepest one could get when it came to Klaus Nomi, who seemed to be part militant exhibitionist who preferred an ego on the outside and part lonely outcast, even in a New York City culture full of outcasts. It was gratifying to see, outside of my brief glimpse in Urgh!, that Nomi had scored success in the City scene, and there is fortunately some good pieces of video in pure performance mode, but the investigation into the identity and art of Nomi seems somewhat thin in this film. A few interviews with friends and bandmates and an aunt who never appears on camera seem to make this more of a friendly reminisence or thin introduction rather than a true documentary, a delving into the essence of this man. Perhaps one of the most intriguing anecdotes comes towards the end from Alan Platt. I won't give it away here, but the dichotomy of Klaus that he presents in his story shortly before the end credits seemed to me more of a launching point than a final summation, a point to start diving into the depths of this man who may have wanted no one to see that he had any depth, but instead this film resides more on superficial overview of Nomi's work, a disappointment for someone like me who already knew a thing or two about him, but I would think disappointing for someone who may not have known anything coming into this--a good enough study to peak some curiosity, but not brave enough to make me toss about the bigger questions.

This film is more than a portrait of the legendary and unforgettable Klaus Nomi; it brings together all the disparate fragments of his elusive legend into a remarkable whole. In doing so, director Andrew Horn tells not only Nomi's story, but the story of a New York that's gone, but hardly forgotten. It's the New York of dreams and hope, of community, artistic aspirations, and low rents. It was a time when half your friends got famous, died, or both. In The Nomi Song, Horn tells this East Side Story twice: in microcosm (Nomi), and in macrocosm, by bringing back so many of the key people and places of a past that those of us who were there still can't believe is over.

Klaus Nomi, what a STAR. He was clever, articulate and above all an original talent. Unfortunately his short, but outrageous life was cut short. I first saw Klaus on a British "Pop" programme back in the 80's and was dumb founded by his amazing vocal and visual talents. This DVD does him justice and tells the story of his brief life with tributes from the people who knew him. One criticisum though..........more footage of Klaus on stage and his videos would have made this perfect.

I first saw "The Nomi Song" the same weekend I saw another music docu-bio, "No Direction Home," and frankly I thought "Nomi" was by far the better film. Now, I'm not saying Andy Horn is as accomplished a director as Martin Scorcese (for one thing, there is a lot less cussing in Horn's films, which is the only reason I can think of for why Horn wasn't nominated for an Oscar for "Nomi"), but I learned a lot more about the New Wave movement in the 1970s and 80s in Horn's film than I did about the folk movement in the 1960s in Scorcese's film. While Scorcese's goal apparently was to lionize Dylan, Horn's goal was at once more modest and more satisfying - to make a compelling film that gave you the sense of what it must have been like to be a musician/singer or even just a follower of New Wave music back in the day. Even if you don't have the slightest interest in Klaus Nomi (and I confess, I didn't), you'll come away from this movie impressed by Horn's exemplary movie-making skills, as well as his ability to find the essential humanness buried in Nomi's "man from outer space" persona.

A movie about Nomi seemed like an impossible idea that only occurred during one of my daydreaming sessions. But yeah, here it is, called The Nomi Song, and neatly packed with an incredible amount of footage and home videos of Nomi which certainly satisfy my increasing frustration of the lack of video materials of Nomi available to the public. The story of Nomi is about extremity - a man who tries too hard to make his ideas come true, that he burns out so bright and fast before we are able to perceive what just happens. His life and music serve a strong influence to who I am today, and Nomi's firm desire and determination to exploit his creativity and become famous, that eventually led him to a situation where few people are willing to be in, always fascinates me that I ponder if I should burn my creativity like he did and if I have the gut to go to where he once had been.