In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50 (working title: Cosmic FuKc: Prog Rock Pond Scum Set to Bum You Out) is a 2022 documentary by Toby Amies about the band King Crimson, filmed over the course of 2018-20.
Amies was originally approached by Robert Fripp and David Singleton to make a documentary about the band. Amies was not familiar with King Crimson's music but Fripp had liked his earlier film The Man Whose Mind Exploded and thought he'd be a suitable person to document the band on its 50th anniversary. Amies' original title for the film was Cosmic FuKc but after he showed an early cut to Fripp, it was decided that the film wasn't quite there yet. Some time later, the final film was premiered at SXSW.
Amies interviewed numerous former bandmembers (although not all of them) and had quite a lot of access to the band—something which ended up being a theme in the film, the issue of what exactly a documentary filmmaker had the right to include or exclude. The film was not a conventional documentary in that it didn't offer a narrative history of the band and had no narrator. The result was highly acclaimed as a film that aimed to show creative people doing what they do, and talking about why they do what they do.
The film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Gainax Ending: The final scene in the documentary has Amies in a room with Fripp, backstage:Amies: What have I missed?Fripp: Everything. You missed everything. There was a determining, critical and pivotal scene in which the history, the origins and the future of King Crimson were presented. And you were not there. Thus rendering this DVD ineffectual and of little use or interest to all.[Fripp heads for the exit.]Amies: ... Thanks.[Fripp looks at him briefly and leaves.]
- I Can Still Fight!: Bill Rieflin, one of the band's drummers, was seriously ill with colon cancer throughout much of the making of the film, and when asked why he still showed up to work, he replies "It's what I do."
- No Hero to His Valet: One of the band's roadies, Paul Stratford, delivers an epic and quite eloquent monologue about the sheer drudgery of being a roadie, especially to a band which is playing a form of music which is increasingly unpopular with the younger generation.
- The Oner: One of the longest shots in the film is when Fripp is reminiscing about his one encounter with J.G. Bennett, the English scientist and teacher who was more or less his guru in the mid-70s. Fripp recalls meeting Bennett and introducing himself, and Bennett asking his name, then Bennett shook his hand... At this point Fripp falls silent for well over a minute, and the camera holds on his face while he stares into space, and then tears can be seen falling down his cheeks. After a very long silence, Fripp resumes by saying that Bennett told him "I'll remember you."note
- Take That!:
- One bandmember, talking about King Crimson's restless need to change their style and sound over the course of its history, asks the rhetorical question "What would a band sound like that didn't do that?" and gives the answer: The Moody Blues.
- Adrian Belew, evidently rather bitter that he hadn't been invited back to the band, gets one in when he points out that for all that the 2013-2020 seven/eight-piece band had been evidently quite a harmonious band to be in, it hadn't made any new studio albums.
