One week after scoring big ratings with his HBO Scientology doc Going Clear, director Alex Gibney doubles down (literally) with this immersive four-hour look at the Chairman of the Board. It's not like any big Sinatra bombshells are out there waiting to be dropped, but Sinatra is still compulsively watchable, and it makes the most of a goldmine of vintage footage, some of it never before seen.
The big find was Sinatra's 1971 "retirement" concert in Los Angeles, which Gibney artfully sprinkles through the film to comment on his subject's life and career. It was a very short retirement but Sinatra did think he was through at the time, and that the times had passed him by. As Sinatra fans know, he had more lives than Morris the Cat.
Gibney's greatest artistic stroke here is his elimination of talking heads. Fully aware that his footage will hold the eye for an eternity, he weaves in audio interviews (identified by onscreen text) to go under the images onscreen. The result is a sort of Greek chorus of voices, both dead and alive, including plenty from the man himself.
2015 will prove to be a very good year for Sinatra aficionados: December marks the 100th anniversary of his birth, which means a forthcoming flood of books, articles, concerts, tributes and anything else you can sell. It's just one of those things.
Sinatra: All or Nothing at All (7 p.m. Sun. and Mon., HBO)
