I cannot accept that in my lifetime, the Big Apple was affordable enough for aspiring musicians to move there with just a guitar and a dream and somehow eke out a living with like-minded creatives — often while intoxicated. Such a fable is squarely 1960s Bob Dylan-esque in my mind, before the affordability crisis and the internet turned community hubs for up-and-comers into largely virtual spaces.

But a little over 20 years ago, the stars of affordable rent and talent aligned in the skyline over grimy New York City clubs, creating an indie-rock scene that is now the stuff of legends, both for the artists it produced and for its inability to be recreated today.

The documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom, which screened at HotDocs Theatre in downtown Toronto last November, charts the growth of the iconic musical area. It attempts  to evoke the adrenaline rush of witnessing a legend in the making while also finding depth in its enigmatic key figures. Directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, the film consists entirely of archival clips and is coupled with contemporary input from those onscreen relegated to voice-over narration. Through a combination of shaky camcorder footage, grainy VHS tapes and music videos rich with the high-resolution of success, we jump from band to band at a dizzying pace that sacrifices coherence and characterization in favour of evoking the era’s youthful instability. When Lovelace and Southern pull back into the performers’ words and trust their music to take the lead, the result is so striking that it makes you wonder what would have been possible if the film’s wealth of material were better refined.

Unfortunately, the most impactful band in the scene featured is also the least interesting to watch. The documentary is fittingly named after a song by the Strokes, whose breakthrough transformed acts in the same genre from underground to in-demand. Through a series of opening meet-cutes, we see the serendipitous collision of the Strokes with fellow indie-rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and anti-folk group the Moldy Peaches.

Fans will enjoy footage of the Strokes goofing around offstage, but the perfunctory narration – or lack thereof – fails to dig beyond their blustering persona. Frontman Julian Casablancas is the most discussed out of all the figures in Meet Me In The Bathroom, but he is spoken about far more often than he speaks himself. The documentary barely even touches on his backstory that could flesh out a Bond villain. Casablancas’ Swiss boarding school education and modelling-agency-president father are named and dropped faster than you can say: “So that’s how he afforded New York rent!”

And if I’m oversimplifying here, the film does little to counter me. Archival footage cannot supplant uninteresting narration about an inaccessible core figure. In one particular scene, the visuals memorable fail to bring broader insights to life as an unidentified speaker exclaims the Strokes were “sex gods!” However, all the viewer sees is a photograph of five dudes with varying curl patterns, rather than a visual that justifies this emphatic sentiment.

Meet Me In The Bathroom is based on an oral history of the same name by Lizzy Goodman that attributes every quote, yet Lovelace and Southern often avoid such clarity. For an overstuffed film, this frustrating choice undercuts the opportunity to link each character’s reflections to an individual, rather than the impersonal voice of the scene. In an eagerness to show the breadth of artists involved, depth is sacrificed to the point of meaningless inclusions. Rock band Interpol is shown for the sake of including Interpol, with not much to say beyond the conventional story of a musical act succeeding after a long stretch of failure and subsequently facing internal conflicts. Fellow band TV on the Radio fares far worse, popping up with all the briefness but none of the emotional impact of a jack-in-the-box toy.

A liberal use of frenetic montages – think clips of musicians juxtaposed with blooming flowers – forms a choppy visual style that splits the difference between hallucinations and fancams. Karen O, lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is easily the most captivating performer onstage, throwing her entire body into startling vocals. One of the best montages intercuts her hurtling through “Tick” with footage of revellers from the first Halloween after the Sept. 11 attacks. The music, editing and era find tumultuous synchronization, nailing the immersive potential of archival documentaries. Ironically, the sequence follows a particularly odd choice: cutting away from Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches performing a deeply evocative song about the attacks for generic footage of its aftermath. At least we return to Dawson in time for her haunting warning about the Manhattan air, where toxic dust clouds are no longer visible, but still linger: “They say that it’s okay, but I say don’t breathe in.”

Questionable editing again undermines emotional impact when Karen O sustains a severe injury onstage. The accident is the culmination of her self-described mental and physical deterioration which regressed as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs grew in popularity. Lovelace and Southern empathetically explore the dichotomy between Karen O’s powerhouse performances and fragile internal life.

While being a woman in a male-dominated arena gave her the freedom to ignore any predetermined rockstar code, it also heightened her isolation. Karen O provides a compelling, thought-provoking narrative supported by her bandmates’ input, but the climax is squandered when the film immediately cuts away from her injury into the stories of different groups. By the time we return to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, their momentum is gone.

A liberal use of frenetic montages – think clips of musicians juxtaposed with blooming flowers – forms a choppy visual style that splits the difference between hallucinations and fancams

To a great extent, Meet Me In The Bathroom is at its best when its narrators are willing to be vulnerable, which is why the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are interesting to watch. But the film’s true potential comes through James Murphy, founder and creative brain behind electronic-rock band LCD Soundsystem.

After an enlightening experience taking ecstasy that is perfectly depicted in
a swirling psychedelic sequence, he awakens to the visceral joy of music that makes people who don’t usually dance, dance. Initially a record producer, Murphy agitatedly describes how he reassessed the three decades of his life he spent hunting down obscure records after the emergence of piracy site Napster in 1999. Now, any 20-year-old with a computer could play the same tracks.

Murphy’s debut single “Losing My Edge” channels his creeping fear of becoming an outdated loser. The documentary wisely includes over a minute of the song’s music video, in which Murphy is slapped repeatedly across the face. Having never listened to the band before, I felt the transcendental, brainstem-shifting experience of visually and audibly absorbing a good song for the first time.

All the footage for LCD Soundsystem is in perfect unison with Murphy’s overarching story, from joyous drug user to uncompromising music producer and somewhat reluctant frontman. Montages are used effectively, but it’s the still moments of music alone that catch the ear and the eye. Directors Lovelace and Southern previously made a documentary about LCD Soundsystem in 2012, which may explain why this narrative is particularly polished.

Murphy is also very willing to talk, providing impassioned, witty reflections that supply much of the film’s humour. His neurotic approach to his work spurs strong reactions in the artists around him, who bring complementary compelling stories and punchy quotes that help turn Murphy into a fully realized character.

In a post-screening Q&A at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Theatre in Toronto, Goodman, who executive produced the film, described how she relinquished control of her book to the directors, saying that a “frame by frame, literal adaptation” would be neither possible nor creatively interesting. While the resulting project takes an admirably labour-intensive approach to immersion, it is ultimately too ambitious for its own good.

Meet Me In The Bathroom, now streaming on Crave, needs ruthless, unsentimental editing to reduce its scope and better follow-up questions for interviewees that penetrate beneath the rockstar facade. The pounding thrum of nostalgia and bass guitars will likely still capture indie-rock fans who witnessed the era for themselves or wish that they had. But if I’m searching for visuals that complement and enhance insightful commentary from the groundbreaking featured performers, I think I’d rather watch their music videos.