Run time: 209 mins

Alex Gibney’s documentary is very long, and worth every minute. Taking in every phase and facet of Paul Simon’s career, the film captures the moving continuity of his art.

Simon invited Gibney into his home studio, where the cameras watch him tinker with the sound on his latest album, and talk about his career, inspirations, ageing and what the loss of hearing has meant. With that album as an anchor, the film flashes back and forth in time, using archival interviews and extended performance clips. It takes us from the immense popularity and folk sound of Simon’s years with Garfunkel – an extraordinary saga in of itself, one that the film captures in all its 1960s romanticism – to his solo career informed by world music from Africa and South America.

Wherever it came from, the music that Simon produced – with Garfunkel and without him – yields a documentary that will leave anyone weaned on those songs feeling groovy all over again. The film is a vivid reminder of how astutely Simon has felt the pulse of different cultures, in a way that can morph and touch us even now