being many things at once is not a novel concept for detroit duo the white stripes, even if these things end up contradicting each other. as frontman jack white informs the viewer in malloy's the white stripes under great white northern lights, the most accurate review of the band he had ever heard is that they are simultaneously the most fake band and the most real band. an interesting thought, and one that malloy teases at throughout the documentary in cinematic fashion.
interviews with the bandmates reveal an idiosyncratic depth to the methodology of the white stripes. fully aware of their contrivance of style (red, white, black iconography) and limitation (being a two piece band) the band works within these parameters to produce (sometimes forcefully) something unique and creative. in the process of revealing how the white stripes function as artists, malloy mirrors the dimensionality of the band in the structure of the documentary.
equal parts performance, interview, and narrative the film also has many moments of purely visual purpose. at first, shots of jack and meg in front of airplanes painted red and white or the black and white shots of them walking on the frozen surface on nunavit may seem as nothing but an exercise in vanity. however, given the film's subject matter its more apt to consider that the inclusion of shots like these show an acceptance of the band's superficiality and how it works in framing their identity. not including pure red, black, and white imagery would do an injustice to who the band actually is. those red and white smoke stacks capture the canadian landscape but illustrate a surface.
behind one surface lays another. the film also captures the band's ability above all to play music. combining theatre shows with secret shows, the stripes run the gamut of musical exhibition. in the process, malloy allows many songs to be filmed start-to-finish, giving the viewer an experience of the spaces the white stripes create. the band plays without set-lists and sometimes without set-locations; the result of such endeavours creates a purely unique musical experience. no show/performance is rehearsed or duplicated (often making the band second guess their individual execution). a vein of originality pulses through the "body" of the white stripes. to illustrate the raw, unfiltered texture of the band, the film almost exclusively uses grainy camerawork while they are on stage.
cynically, this could be interpreted as yet another device perpetuating the mystique of the stripes. this misses the point; the white stripes are a band who box themselves in multiple constrictions to force creativity. great white northern lights forces a spotlight on the concept of the artist. it is more than a document of a canadian tour its a document of identity. not just how the white stripes should be percieved or want to, but what goes into that perception. what makes-up who the artist is. the conclusion being that the white stripes are, after ten years, still the same band they started out as: gimmick and grit.
