Stills from Spike Lee’s Michael Jackson documentary ‘Bad 25′ released | Film News

With his highly-anticipated film celebrating and documenting the making of Michael Jackson‘s seminal Bad album set to premiere later this month, acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee has released a set of images depicting some of the project’s high-profile interview subjects.

Stars like Kanye West, Mariah Carey, director Martin Scorcese and more all participate in Bad 25 and are expected to offer some unique perspectives of Jackson’s genius and its effect on entertainment and popular culture.

“We really divided it into two things: Artists today who were influenced by Michael, and then people who worked side by side — musicians, songwriters, technicians, engineers, people at the label, who were all committed to Michael, to the follow-up to the biggest record of all time,” Lee explained to The Hollywood Reporter last month about the film’s interview subjects.

Bad 25 will be premiering at Italy’s Venice Film Festival — which, appropriately, begins August 29th, on what would have been the King of Pop’s 54th birthday. Organizers of the festival will also be awarding with Lee the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2012 award, a type of lifetime achievement honor given to “a personality who has brought great innovation to contemporary cinema.”

It was announced this week that the film will also be screening at the Toronto Film Festival, which runs September 6th through 16th.

Check out the official synopsis and a few stills from the documentary below.
 

Spike Lee pays tribute to Michael Jackson’s Bad on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the epochal album, offering behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson recording the album and interviews with confidants, musicians, choreographers, and such music-world superstars as Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Cee Lo Green and Mariah Carey.

“Bad 25″ features captivating behind-the-scenes footage of the recording sessions for several of Bad’s biggest songs (“The Way You Make Me Feel” being among the most memorable). There are also revealing interviews with a number of fellow artists who worked with Jackson — such as Sheryl Crow, with whom Jackson shared the duet “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” on stage during the Bad world tour — and those who were inspired by him, including Kanye West, Cee Lo Green and Mariah Carey. Lee offers us a more intimate side of Jackson, one rarely glimpsed amidst the glitter and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the notoriously private superstar, especially as his personal life (and appearance) became a scandal-rag mainstay in the years that followed Bad. As the landmark album takes shape before our eyes, we see Jackson’s dedication to his craft, his talent for inspired collaboration, and his sly sense of humour — as well as some hints of the toll that his relentless work ethic had on his psyche.