The act of (or is it the art of) lip-syncing is one that practically goes part and parcel within the realms of pop music. Some artists do so because their studio vocals can’t possibly be emulated live. Others rely on such due to demanding dance routines. And then there are those that, well, can’t sing a note to save themselves. For Milli Vanilli, the R&B/pop French-German duo who briefly dominated the global music scene in the late 1980s and early 90s, it’s somewhat of an amalgamation of all three. But then it wasn’t so much that they couldn’t sing, it’s that they didn’t sing.
Tracking their hopeful rise and meteoric fall, the simply titled Milli Vanilli allows director Luke Korem to look at the “American dream” tale from the inside out, with surviving member Fabrice Morvan detailing alongside other key music insiders and executives that the supposed “joke” of their career was anything but amusing; sadly, the other half of Milli Vanilli, Rob Pilatus, passed away after a battle with drugs and alcohol in 1998 at the age of just 32.
Whilst to many Milli Vanilli will always be associated with a punchline of sorts, Korem’s film, emotionally guided by Morvan throughout, showcases the duo as, above all, humans and creatives who just wanted the chance to make music, and being young and self-admittedly naïve, they grabbed their presented opportunity with collective hands; “A deal with the devil’, it’s so rightfully referred as. Said devil was German producer Frank Farian (who tellingly declined to be interviewed for the film), who had already carved out success in the disco space as the founder of Boney M, and it was with such credentials that Morvan and Pilatus were anxious to sign the dotted line of their shoved-in-their-face contract and get to making music; we learn that the two were broken souls of sorts (particularly the orphaned Rob) who gravitated towards each other as teenaged break dancers on the European nightclub scene.
As far as the two were aware, Farian had signed them off the back of their vocals (the film does prove that, despite their reputation, the duo had serviceable signing voices), but the producer had a far more nefarious plan on hand, one that would utilise Morvan and Pilatus’ aesthetically pleasing looks and penchant for energetic dancing, but side-line their vocal ability. Farian, having teased the boys with the instrumental track for soon-to-be-signature-success “Girl You Know It’s True”, informed them they would not be in fact singing on the record. Morvan claims here that he rejected such an offer, but Farian’s contract had locked the boys into one of potentially crippling-debt should they walk away, and so they submitted to the charade out of fear. Farian’s long-time assistant Ingrid Segieth, who did agree to be interviewed for the film, rejects this claim, but it’s difficult to entirely take her word for it when, in the early stages of the feature, she seems almost gleeful at their naivety.
The idea that Morvan and Pilatus – now officially formed as Milli Vanilli – would lip-sync the vocals of other performers (both Brad Howell and Charles Shaw, the original vocalists, appear) had been agreed upon, and in the initial stages it was an easy ruse to execute as they were oft performing on European television programs where many artists were known for miming their own work. Milli Vanilli becoming a global success was, somewhat ironically, not on the cards, and the bigger they got, the more difficult it became to keep their mouths shut – funnily enough.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about it all was that the timeline I personally had equated to their downfall – and probably the one that many similarly relate their ending to – is not remotely how Milli Vanilli became undone. Like many, I had always linked their disastrous “live” performance in Bristol, Connecticut in 1989 as the beginning of the end, when the backing track to “Girl You Know It’s True” malfunctioned and began skipping, repeating the same line over and over again to where the two ran off the stage in a panic; their concert hype act, Downtown Julie Brown, equates this moment as something of a catalyst for Pilatus’ eventual spiral into addiction.
They managed to weather that storm – their fame level was far too high at that point – and the higher-ups at the record label (including industry big-wig Clive Davis) had pretty much struck a deal and accepted that lip-syncing was to be their particular norm. As to be expected from people in positions of power, Davis and his minions hoped that any chatter surrounding the lip-syncing would eventually die off, and, rather surprisingly, it did, but it essentially just morphed into an open secret that Fab and Rob were faux singers with a bloody great PR team behind them.
Ironically Milli Vanilli’s kiss of death was their submission for Best New Artist at the 1990 Grammy Awards. Their subsequent win over far more established acts as Tone Loc and Indigo Girls brought them no further credibility, their performance was greenlit as one of the few in Grammy history to allow pre-recorded vocals, and now that they had visibility on a much higher level it meant future performances would be under a microscope. The world seemed to know (and partly accept) the boys were miming. The boys themselves weren’t quite ready to accept it themselves.
The house of cards that was slowly losing its balance was one swift blow away from tumbling entirely, and the eventual fall, though partly nudged by Morvan and Pilatus threatening a public outing on the actions of the label, came apart when Farian outed them first. It’s quite a disgusting act, and what’s even more infuriating when watching the film is how the two were vilified by the media at the press conference they gave explaining their actions and how they were ultimately a smaller piece of a larger, more toxic puzzle. The outcry from the journalists is somewhat understandable, but it’s embarrassing and heart-breaking to watch Fabrice and Rob clutch to whatever life support they have left.
For those that lived through the drama of Milli Vanilli both dominating the pop scene and undoing their brief legacy in one foul swoop, Milli Vanilli – as a film – should hopefully provide clarity and serve as an act of vindication for the two men that shouldered the blame and entirely didn’t deserve to. They were complicit, yes, but how Farian escaped unscathed is the truest crime of all, and Korem’s often sad, sporadically beautiful documentary is a poignant experience and cautionary tale that whilst laced in tragedy – the back-end of the film discusses Pilatus and how he couldn’t handle the rejection of fame – has a hopeful coda that, had it not been all true, you’d almost believe it was made up for the sake of entertainment.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Milli Vanilli is screening as part of the Screen Festival Program at this year’s SXSW Sydney, running between October 15th and 22nd, 2023. The film is scheduled to be released on Paramount Plus on October 25th, 2023.
