Billy Joel had planned to be in the audience for the opening night of the Tribeca Festival to watch the world premiere of a new documentary about his tumultuous rise to the top of the charts
But the singer, who was recently diagnosed with a brain disorder known as Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), was forced to skip Wednesday’s glitzy screening of “Billy Joel: And So It Goes.” Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, the film’s directors, assured the audience that Joel is confident that he will return to the stage.
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“He will be back,” Lacy said. She also shared a short message from the music legend. “Getting old sucks, but it’s still preferable to getting cremated,” Joel’s note read.
After going public with his health issues, Joel recently announced he was cancelling 17 shows he booked at stadiums across North America and England while he underwent “specific physical therapy.”
“Billy Joel: And So It Goes” provides an in-depth look at the singer’s struggles to break into the mainstream and, several hit records later, his conflicted feelings about celebrity. It includes archival footage and photos of performances, home movies and interviews with Joel and other members of his social and artistic circles. It’s a group that encompasses Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Pink, Garth Brooks, and Elizabeth Weber, Joel’s ex-wife and former manager. The film also provides the backstory behind some Joel’s most enduring songs, such as ”Piano Man,” “New York State of Mind,” and “Just the Way You Are.”
Lacy said that Joel instructed the filmmakers to “be honest.”
“It wasn’t always easy, but he peeled back the layers of his music and his life with courage, humor and vulnerability,” she said. “No matter where you’re from, Billy’s music reaches across the geography and generations, and in this increasingly fractured world, it’s a privilege to celebrate an artist whose music has connected us for so long.”
In their introductory remarks, Tribeca co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal hailed Joel as an encapsulation of the five borough spirit that the festival celebrates.
“Billy may be considered the poet laureate of New York,” De Niro said. “You feel the essence of our city in his lyrics.”
The premiere, which drew A-listers such as Tom Hanks and Whoopi Goldberg, was held at the Beacon Theatre with an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. This year’s Tribeca lineup includes documentaries on legendary reporter Barbara Walters, restauranteur Nobu Matsuhisa, and “Something Beautiful,” a “visual album” that was co-directed by Miley Cyrus. There are also talks with Sean Penn, Ellen Pompeo and Bryan Cranston, as well as reunions with the casts of “Meet the Parents” and “Casino.”
Following its Tribeca screening, “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” will debut on HBO and be available to stream on Max this summer. The festival only showed the first part of the two-part documentary.
“They would not let us stay in the theater longer than two and a half hours,” Levin explained.
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