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Film Review: Scratch

Hiphop DJ's finally get their chance to shine.

by Douglas Passion | 2002.10.19

The most obvious message found in Scratch is that the best DJ's are usually oddballs. Perhaps the undercurrent of weirdness can be attributed to the long hours spent practicing beat juggling and flare-scratching instead of throwing around a Nerf football or fondling the neighbor's daughter. Maybe there's something hovering in the air of the mildewed basements and dusty record stores these guys spend so much time scouring for rare vinyl. Either way, Doug Pray's latest film reveals the eccentric characters behind the turntables for what they are: artists, musicians and innovators.

Focusing primarily on the two groups at opposite ends of hiphop's timeline, Scratch gives equal screen time to both the inner city Blacks who created the foundations of hiphop DJ'ing and the multicultural smelting-pot of "turntablists" who have transmogrified the genre's base elements of scratching and cutting into a frenzied collection of vinyl manipulating techniques.

Although their styles of presentation may be dissimilar, Scratch proves that a common spirit of inventiveness and imagination has remained embedded in each successive generation of DJ. The same ingenuity that led GrandWizzard Theodore to devise the first scratch manifests again in a turntable cipher with DJ Flare, Q-Bert and DJ Shadow taking turns comparing their latest creations.

If the evolution of the DJ was put into Darwinian terminology, Scratch makes it clear that GrandMixer DXT is the proverbial missing link. His performances with Herbie Hancock on Saturday Night Live and the Grammy's are cited by a substantial number of DJ's as the inspiration for their adoption of the craft. In fact, DXT's name is uttered so frequently that the filmmakers eventually took to humorously splicing in split-second clips of his Grammy performance during other people's interviews.

While Scratch certainly takes pains to accurately pay homage to the genre's forefathers, it never falls victim to the soulless aridity that often befalls historical or fact-based documentaries. Of course, having a bunch of loony fuckers like Q-Bert, Cut Chemist and Mix Master Mike in front of the camera helps to insure that your material will veer sharply away from the predictable. The California-based "turntablists" all seem to be part of some cosmic/karmic brotherhood that relies on drawing inspiration from outer-space sources. Mix Master Mike talks of creating music for extraterrestrials while Q-Bert demonstrates beat juggling with a small illuminated fountain burbling gently in front of his turntables. "It's like Kung Fu," says Q-Bert.

Not only do the intergalactic shenanigans produce plenty of laughs, they also provide some insight into understanding the type of person who invests so much time into mastering a relatively obscure artform. While the pioneers lusted for the opportunity to rock local parties, the "turntablists" seem to be a slightly less social bunch. Most of the Californians speak of the Zen-like meditative qualities of ones-and-twos wizardry. DJ Shadow is shown huddled in the cluttered corner of a decrepit vinyl warehouse -- "This is my nirvana," he whispers.

Although the bulk of the interviews are filmed in traditional talking-head stance, Pray livens up the monotony with a few idiosyncratic camera tricks that are reminiscent of film school playfulness. Fortunately, the occasional gimmicks work. After all, we're not talking about a documentary about the Battle of Cornwallis here - these are interviews with The Invisibl Skratch Pickles.

Although some footage of the classic DMC battles of the late '80's would have shown that artists other than the founding fathers and "turntablists" have made significant contributions to the artform (the exclusion of Mr. Cee, Daddy Rich and Scratch is almost criminal), Scratch does pack quite a bit of information into a fairly concise package. The film also could have benefited from giving a quick tutorial on various scratching/cutting/beat-juggling techniques instead of taking viewers directly from GrandMaster Theodore's basic "chicka-chicka" to Q-Bert's warp speed flagellating fader.

The greatest triumph of Scratch is that the film is entertaining for both hiphop newbies and longtime "turntablism" aficionados. While one doesn't need to understand the difference between a crab scratch and a flare scratch to appreciate the talents of the featured artists, the film isn't so dumbed-down that knowledgeable DJ's will feel patronized or bored. At a time when creativity in hiphop seems in short supply, Scratch will rekindle your affection for beats, rhymes and life.

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