In 'Justin
Bieber's Believe,' Jon Chu aims to look beyond stardom
'We addressed things having to do with
him being a human being,' says director Jon Chu of his documentary about Justin
Bieber.
December
24, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
Justin
Bieber
wasn't sure he liked what he saw.
When
the petite pop prince from the Great White North first viewed a rough cut of
the new documentary "Justin Bieber's Believe," he excitedly called
its director Jon Chu in the middle of the night to voice concerns.
Not
about the less-than-flattering aspects of the movie, like where Chu asks Bieber
about him turning into a "train wreck." Or where the director,
speaking off-camera, ponders if Bieber will wind up like Michael
Jackson
or Lindsay
Lohan.
The
19-year-old superstar was hung up on a segment in which he's shown talking
about being in love and experiencing heartbreak. Could Chu edit Bieber's
halting answers down to more concise sound bites?
"He
was, like, 'I'm umming and awwing a lot. Can you, like, clean that up?'"
recalled Chu. "'It feels like I don't know what love is.' And I'm, like,
'That's awesome! That you're trying to find the right words is so great. That's
why we like you.' He's, like, 'OK. I just don't want to look like an
idiot.'"
With
its insider's view of teenage fandom's foremost icon, "Justin Bieber's Believe"
(which arrives in theaters Christmas Day) presents any number of compelling
insights on its subject: as a self-starting artist shown putting pencil to
loose leaf pad to write his hit 2012 single "Boyfriend." As a
cheerful kid with an extensive wardrobe of harem pants who's at least
self-reflective enough to admit his attempt to grow a barely there mustache is
"delusional." As a man-child on the cusp of adulthood, able and
willing to butt heads with his powerhouse manager Scooter Braun.
But
contrary to the avalanche of tabloid reports about the star that materialize on
a weekly basis — "Justin Bieber Pees Into Restaurant Mop Bucket,"
"Justin Bieber Goes Butt Naked With a Guitar in Leaked Photos!" — he
does not seem feckless in the film. In addition to scenes of
"Beatlemania"-on-steroids fan adulation and concert footage shot
during his last tour, "Believe" serves to humanize a teenager who is
so constantly in the public eye that he's become an abstraction.
And
Chu, who directed the singer's 2011 3-D concert documentary, "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," was probably the
only person who could have brought the new movie to screen. After becoming a
trusted member of the star's inner circle and being contracted by Braun to
stage-direct Bieber's 2012-13 "Believe" tour (a first for the
filmmaker, who says he had "never directed a high school play
before"), Chu initially proposed a behind-the-scenes straight-to-DVD
concert movie.
As
filming commenced, however, a new narrative came into focus. "He's a boy.
He's a man. What is he? He doesn't know yet but he's taking control," the
director said at the Hollywood-adjacent office of his production company, Chu
Studios. "The idea was to show him in that vulnerable spot."
Chu,
34, pitched Braun and the singer on a new idea: a warts-and-all rockumentary.
"'I
want people to know that you're normal people,'" Chu recalled telling
them. "'[To Braun] You're not the puppet master and [to Bieber] you're not
this douche-bag kid. I want people to know you guys the way I know you.'"
The
director says he never intended to film a "fluff piece" and was
granted wide creative latitude by Braun (whose platinum-plus client roster
includes South Korean pop star Psy, "Call Me
Maybe" singer Carly Rae Jepsen and U.K. boy band the Wanted). Toward that end,
the film includes footage that will be familiar to any Belieber worth his or
her salt — Bieber flying off the handle at British paparazzi last March,
attempting to leap from a van to physically assault the men but being
restrained by his security team.
"As
a human being, rage comes out," the singer explains in
"Believe." "You snap. I wanted to hit him."
Although
the movie could have served to shoot down any number of tabloid rumors, Chu
says "Believe" was never intended as a rejoinder to scandalmongering.
"I
didn't want this to be a defense of things he did, because you can just go down
the list," he said. "We addressed things having to do with him being
a human being — the basis of his character."
Unlike
"Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," which was shot for $13 million and
grossed an impressive $99 million worldwide, "Believe" is a much
smaller scale indie production that arrives with considerably lower
expectations.
Where
the earlier movie was distributed by Paramount Pictures and benefited from the
Hollywood studio's marketing heft, Braun, Bieber and Chu (along with R&B
star Usher Raymond) bankrolled the new film's $4-million budget themselves.
Distributed by Open Road Films, "Believe" will reach more than 1,000
screens in a crowded holiday movie marketplace that has it facing off against
competition including Ben Stiller's "The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty" and the Martin
Scorsese
corruption comedy "The Wolf of Wall Street" starring Leonardo
DiCaprio.
Given
Chu's up-close-and-personal access to pop musicdom's brightest shining light,
it raises the question: Does the director think Bieber will wind up a train
wreck like Lindsay Lohan or Michael Jackson?
"The
movie is his answer," said Chu. "Maybe the choices haven't been made
yet as to whether he'll be a train wreck or not. But there's enough evidence in
his life to show he will make the right choice at some point."
