Have You Got It Yet? The Story Of Syd Barrett And Pink Floyd, a new documentary from film maker Roddy Bagawa and Barrett's former childhood friend Storm Thorgerson, co-founder of the Hipgnosis design company who created many of Pink Floyd's iconic album sleeves, is now screening internationally.
The film features interviews conducted by Thorgerson with Barrett's Pink Floyd bandmates Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, reflecting on their friendship and looking back on his legacy. It also features interviews from early Floyd managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, The Who's Pete Townshend, Blur's Graham Coxon and more.
'Cult icon, enigma, recluse… the life of Syd Barrett, founding member of Pink Floyd, is full of unanswered questions," the film synopis reads. 'Until now. 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.'
Barrett's time with Pink Floyd came to an end in 1968, after his bandmates tired of his erratic behaviour caused by his deteriorating mental health, and he exited the music business for good in 1972, and retired from public life.
"One of the things that’s built Syd’s image is people projecting their own feelings and thoughts or even worries on to his story," Roddy Bagawa told The Guardian. He was out of the limelight, so people could fill in that unresolved mystery how they like."
Towards the end of the documentary David Gilmour weighs up his personal connection with Barrett, and admits that he has "a regret or two."
"We probably did about as much as we could have, although we were all very young," he says. "But I have a regret or two. I never went to see him, even though his family kind of discouraged it and I regret that I never went up to his house and knocked on the door. I think both Syd and I might have gained something out of one or two people popping ’round to his house for a cup of tea."
An emotional Andrew King adds, "This bloke changed the lives of everyone around him, and… It’s a terrible story. A very, very sad story."
Watch the trailer for the documentary below:
