Behind the Music: Shania Twain [VHS]
At its best, VH-1'sBehind the Musicseries walks a fine line between valentine and deep dish, coaxing personal tragedies and dark career missteps from its subjects while still acknowledging their achievements and saluting the fans.  This well-timed profile of the Canadian country crossover queen is an apt example, benefiting from abundant early video footage and a willingness (albeitverydelicately employed) to raise some of the tougher questions about her public image.The former Eilleen Twain's struggle from provincial lounge bands to a budding Canadian career, only to be thrust into the role of surrogate parent when her parents died in an auto accident, is presented sympathetically, of course, as is her identification with her adoptive father's Ojibwa culture. But the 60-minute documentary also notes subsequent media skepticism about this rags-to-riches saga, while allowing Twain and some passionate defenders (including singer Faith Hill and Nashville journalist Robert Oermann) to knock the nay-sayers.Meanwhile, Twain's putative country credentials are examined more in terms of Nashville's Music Row power elite than her music. We learn how she was initially groomed as a country marionette, mouthing other people's songs, dismissed as an outsider, then begrudgingly accepted as a star after she teamed with producer and future husband Robert "Mutt" Lange to record her own songs. What's never really addressed is whether Twain's slickly crafted songs are true examples of country music, or archetypes of the chicken-fried mainstream pop-rock that now accounts for much of the "New Country" boom. Twain's readiness to exploit her beauty and aerobicized midriff is another story, of course, but who can blame the filmmakers?If the story sometimes edges toward hagiography, crude but endearing video footage offers un-retouched glimpses of the future superstar in early, pre-pubescent performances, as well as in teenage Canadian TV excerpts, and as the big-haired, chameleon vocalist in a slick resort review.--Sam Sutherland