Behind the lens
There is a point in Toby Amies’s latest documentary film, ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ where there is nothing but silence for a full minute.
The camera remains fixed on the interviewee, guitarist and band leader Robert Fripp, until he considers and composes himself. It’s all rather dramatic and is a sign, if you hadn’t already realised it, that this is not your standard music documentary!
“The first rule of cinema is show, don’t tell.” says Toby. “You want the viewer to experience the story, to feel something, not just passively watch it. We’re not really telling the story of King Crimson from the outside, hopefully we’re giving people a glimpse into its soul.”
‘In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50’ was filmed in 2019 when Toby accompanied the band on their European tour. He knew little about King Crimson when approached by Robert Fripp with a request to make a film with a difference, a film that would tell people, even its enigmatic frontman, something new and meaningful about the band.
Toby says: “King Crimson fans are incredibly dedicated but the point of the film is not to preach to the converted, it’s to introduce the band to a new audience. Robert had liked my previous film (The Man Whose Mind Exploded) and thought I could bring the creative direction he was after. He wanted someone with no preconceived ideas about the band.”
King Crimson has always been known for the quality of its musicianship, while Robert Fripp has a reputation as a perfectionist and something of a tough taskmaster, and watching the film there are clearly some tense moments between the band members – current and former.
Toby says: “It’s a serious business being in King Crimson, that’s why they’re so good. The reality is that often, to achieve extraordinary results you have to be willing to make extraordinary sacrifices and that is an uncomfortable truth of the film. Sometimes, even though you have achieved something extraordinary, it’s not fun, you’re acutely aware of the cost.”
Some of the most poignant footage is that shot with Bill Rieflin, drummer and keyboard player, who discloses he has stage four colon cancer during the filming. Sadly he passed away in 2020 before the film was finished.
Toby says: “Bill was the only person who I’d seen before making the film as I’d gone to one of his gigs in New York in about 1999 and we had mutual friends in common. We shared a love of punk and he also had an immaculate sense of humour.
“Despite being in pain he was choosing to spend some of his last moments on Earth touring and that says a lot about the band. For him, and others, playing in King Crimson is life… it is everything. It was the hardest part of creating the film. Nobody ever wants to be editing their dead friend, so I try and look at it a different way – that they get to live on in the film. I hope I’ve done Bill justice.
“That’s the thing about this documentary. The film ostensibly is about King Crimson but it’s really about time and death, the pursuit of excellence, and relationships between people.”
Toby studied American and Commonwealth Arts at Exeter, graduating in 1990. Part of the same social scene as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Felix Buxton, who would go on to form Basement Jaxx, Toby spent much of his time DJing in nightclubs like the Timepiece.
He says: “I can’t play a note but music is my life. I grew up in Worcestershire, just outside the village the Archers is based on, so there wasn’t a lot going on. Music was the thing that transported me to other places. One of the things that attracted me to Exeter was actually that at the time it had the biggest collection of American music outside of the States*.”
* The collection still exists within the library.
Toby DJ’ed for a number of years in the UK before moving to the US where he worked at an Arizona radio station alongside future late-night TV star Jimmy Kimmel. From there he moved to MCA Records in Los Angeles where his connections ultimately led to MTV, both in the US and Europe.
“Where I’ve been able to, I’ve got myself into the right place at the right time, and where opportunity hasn’t existed, I’ve done my very best to create it.”
Toby says: “Where I’ve been able to, I’ve got myself into the right place at the right time, and where opportunity hasn’t existed, I’ve done my very best to create it. When I was little I wasn’t given pocket money, I was told to pick apples from the garden and sell them on the road with my sister. That meant that she and I started off with a kind of certain degree of entrepreneurial spirit, and that willingness to hustle.
“I was working for a record company in LA, calling round the radio stations promoting the latest tracks, building up relationships with people, and this one year we had the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Now, not all the records I had to sell were that great, but this was amazing. I really pushed it and we ended up having an event in New York where Quentin Tarantino came and did a Q&A and we got loads of interest.
“At the same time I get a call from MTV saying they were casting for a new anchor and a couple of people in the UK had mentioned me. So we chatted and it all sounded great and then the next question naturally was ‘what do you look like?’ And I said ‘well if you look on p14 of Billboard magazine you’ll see’. Of course there was this photo of me with Quentin Tarantino, and the rest is history!”
Toby continued to live in the USA for a number of years, moving to the east coast for work. Which is how it came to be that on the morning of September 11, 2001 he was stood outside his apartment in Brooklyn watching the planes hit the Twin Towers. A photo taken by Toby of the view downtown was to find its way into news outlets across the world (on the anniversary in 2021, The Guardian ran a piece about the iconic photo).
Toby says: “Taking that photo was one of the worst days of my life. But at the same time, my experience was nothing compared to those who lost their lives, who lost loved ones. So it feels almost trivial to talk about my feelings. It’s not something you can take pride in. But at the same time, I’m aware that it’s an extraordinary photograph.
“The process of photography can often remove you from your direct experience. So I can remember the process of taking the photo but not what was happening. Part of me was thinking ‘what the hell are you doing, taking a picture of this?’, but good works of art, they cease to become exclusively about the experience of the person who made them. They’re more significant as they are. As things that impact the experience and understanding of the people who to look at them.”
Watch the trailer for In the Court of the Crimson King:
