Kevin Smith Filmed An Unreleased Prince Documentary

Kevin Smith’s love for Prince is well-documented. The writer/director was one of the many in Hollywood to tweet about the music and pop culture legend after his unexpected death yesterday.

Smith went further on facebook, talking about how the “music of Prince was the soundtrack to my life.”

While his love for the man who’d come to own the color purple is well-known, less known is the lost documentary on Prince that he made. During his “Evening with Kevin Smith” series of talks a few years ago (and the above linked facebook post), he elaborated on the documentary.

It came to be when he was trying to get a Prince song for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and contacted Prince’s people. Prince called him back personally on his home phone and talked to him – but wound up talking to him about two surprising things: Jesus Christ and a documentary he wanted filmed. Smith didn’t get the song, but he did agree to make the documentary.

Smith went to Prince’s Paisley Park home and filmed a documentary during the “Rainbow Children” album listening party, a concept album that was principally about his personal faith and religion.

“He said, ‘Basically what I want you to shoot is people’s reactions to the music, then talk to them about religion, and lead that into race, and by the end of the week I want to change the world.’ I was thinking, ‘I’m in the middle of making a dick and fart joke movie, man!’” Smith said in his talk (you can watch the entire thing above).

After some (understandable) reluctance, he did in fact make the film for Prince, though it was never released. Short of the documentary itself, Smith’s story from the first Evening with Kevin Smith DVD that he released in its entirety is worth half an hour of your time.