Rereleased documentary study of the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre is an epic story of success and failure

After 20 years, Ondi Timoner has rereleased her riveting and colossal documentary study of two psych rock bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and their epic dual story of success and failure. There is about 40 minutes of extra material and a present-day coda that reveals, among other things, that each band has a member who now sells real estate. That ending, brutally and suddenly visiting grey-haired middle age on these gorgeous rock’n’roll exquisites, reminded me of the Fellini-esque dream opening to Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories in which two trains, one carrying life’s winners and the other with hapless losers, wind up at the same dusty rubbish heap.

Dig! XX, which took years to shoot, is alternately narrated by the Warhols’ frontman, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, and the BJM’s relentlessly goofy tambourine player, Joel Gion, and it shows the complex “frenmity” of the two bands. Almost from the outset, it seemed as if the Dandy Warhols were destined for commercial success tainted by feelings of selling out, and their pals the Brian Jonestown Massacre were heading for failure redeemed by a magnificent and self-destructive kind of integrity.