I admire Steve McQueen's subtle acting talent,but his abilities obviously didn't include playing a rock 'n' roll star. His couple of scenes fronting a local band are laughable. His mugging and lip-syncing are so exaggerated, it's painful to watch.
Side note: Check out the guitarist in McQueen's band. Bless my soul, it appears to be none other than Glen Campbell, who was probably doing studio work with the Beach Boys about that time, too.
At first I thought the lip-syncing was awful but then I noticed the lips do line up pretty well with the words of the song.
The problem, I think, is with the rest of the process. Steve's facial gestures, head tilts, facial and neck strain, etc. don't match up with the level the singer is putting out. The voice also doesn't seem to match what Steve's actual singing voice would be.
I have no idea what the process was but it appears Steve was just mouthing the words to the song and acting as if he was singing. Then, post production, they filled the sound, having the actual singing match Steve's mouth movement or it was done in editing.
Who knows but I suspect it would have worked better if they had Steve actually sing the song full tilt, maybe along with recorded track, then they'd get the gestures right.
I concur. McQueen's poor lip-syncing along with a too smooth singing voice that doesn't come close to matching his natural speaking voice was the one major off thing about this otherwise fine and affecting movie.
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I agree that this film has the worst lip-syncing I've ever seen. It really is too bad that the director didn't have McQueen sing.
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