Still Bill follows the life of Bill Withers, a surprising musical force who wrote and crooned the classic, “Lean on Me,” “Just the Two of Us” and “Ain’t not Sunshine” among other Billboard hits. Don’t worry if Bill who? runs across your head. He’d most likely prefer it that way.
Alex Vlack and Damani Baker, who’s prior success lies in commercial production with their company Late Nights and Weekends, were determined eight years ago to create a portrait of a man who has slipped into anonymity yet whose songs are immortal.
Editors Jon Fine and Sakae Ishikawa stitch together the story of Bill Withers musical past through studio recordings and interviews done by copacetic cats, but it is through the eyes of Vlack & Baker, we meet Bill Withers as he is now.
It isn’t even from the leopard chair where Mr. Withers gives his best grandfatherly advice, or while visiting his childhood home in Slab Fork, West Virginia (which he vowed never to return to prior to meeting the filmmakers) where we really see him—here he still continues to charm people effortlessly just like he did with his music.
Instead, his truth and complexity comes through in the more intimate settings he’s invited us to. Like when he’s in a room full of children who stutter and share his shame. Or when he’s recording a song with his daughter where he comes off more like a musical sergeant.
It is in this discrepancy of showoff and secrecy we learn about Bill Withers and maybe even why no one really knows his name. And even at the end of the film you may not have a sense that you really know him, but Vlack & Baker take us as close as we can get.