Cult icon, enigma, recluse… the life of Syd Barrett, founding member of world-famous rock group, Pink Floyd, is full of unanswered questions. Was he a drug casualty of the sixties? Did he walk away from the pressures of the commercial music world? Did he suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness? Prepare for some answers in this riveting film directed by Storm Thorgerson (Hipgnosis) and awardwinning director Roddy Bogawa.
Though he named the group, wrote the first two hit songs and was the lead vocalist and guitarist, Barrett was pushed out of the band by its members who were convinced he was having an LSD-induced psychotic breakdown. After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett struggled to record two solo records but eventually dropped out of the music industry completely, living as a recluse for thirty years while Pink Floyd went on to worldwide fame as one of the biggest-selling bands of all time.
Piecing together his comet-like rise to pop stardom, his creative and destructive impulses, breakdown, exit from the band and subsequent life alone, this feature length documentary is set against the social context of the explosive sixties. It includes iconic concert footage for Shine on you Crazy Diamond, rarely seen excerpts of Syd backstage, never-before-seen photographs, and interviews with Syd’s friends, lovers, family and band mates Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason – all accompanied by a soundtrack full of Pink Floyd’s music in surround sound.