The Beach Boys loom so large in our shared cultural imagination that it’s surprising to remember that the group only appeared in a single feature motion picture. Yes, the “beach party” movies of the early-to-mid-’60s trucked in a fun-in-the-sun ethos that the Beach Boys records propagated, but 1964’s Muscle Beach Party had the sounds of twang guitarist Dick Dale and his Del-Tones (Jimi Hendrix was probably thinking of these guys when he announced “We’ll never have to listen to surf music again”) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini had to lean on “Louie Louie” guys The Kingsmen. (True, Muscle Beach Party featured Stevie Wonder…back when he was known as “Little Stevie Wonder, which ain’t nothing, but still…)

In any event, brothers Brian and Dennis and Carl Wilson, with cousin Al Jardine and somebody’s best friend (or maybe he loaned one of them some money), Mike Love, look very spiffy singing with and instrumentally backing up Annette Funicello in, well, a Disney comedy, kicking out the title song for The Monkey’s Uncle, a tune they weren’t even allowed to write. (Stalwart Disney songwriters the Sherman brothers penned the tune, one that did allow for some effervescent harmonizing from the fellows.) Almost forgot: they also have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performance bit in The Girls on the Beach, to which they of course contribute the title song.

So why does Brian Wilson, who died today at age 82, evoke such cinematic images and memories whenever his name is mentioned? Because the magical music he made often was itself a form of cinema. When he conceived of his ambitious, boundary-breaking Beach Boys album Smile, which was never fully realized with that band — a solo extravaganza was released in 2004 — he said its songs were “teenage symphonies to God.”  That has an almost cinematic ring to it. But even before then, with the early odes to sand and ocean sprays and souped-up cars and girls on the beach and all of that, Brian’s songs weren’t just about those things — they took you to the beach, the drag strip, the teen bedroom where you could forget all your worries and your cares. 

No matter how far away from California you were geographically, when you listened to the Beach Boys, Malibu came to you. Among musicians, one of Wilson’s biggest fans was the Wales-born John Cale, co-founder of the very un-Beach-Boys-like Velvet Underground. Cale wrote a homage to Brian on his album Slow Dazzle; the song was called “Mr. Wilson” (“And you know it’s true/that Wales is not lie California in any way/And every time I hear your music/You’re still thousands of miles away”). That was true in a number of ways at the time: by 1975, after having backed away from his band in the mid-’60s (the slack was picked up by brother Carl admirably, and by grandiose singer Mike Love with a lot of what can most kindly be called show-biz elan), he was in a mentally dissociative state. LSD hadn’t done him any favors in the so-called “Summer of Love,” and Wilson went through years of suffering. Paranoia struck deep: He went to see the hot, creepy thriller Seconds in late 1966 and was deeply disturbed that its protagonist was named “Wilson.” (Let’s hope he never saw Castaway.)

We need not reprise all the sad tales of his shambling wilderness-years behavior here, although we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that he freaked out Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop — two figures with a high tolerance for unusual behavior — by trying to wrangle them into a singalong session of “Shortenin’ Bread.” Wilson eventually found what he believed to be relief through the ministering of a psychologist named Eugene Landy. 

Whether the doctor did him any good whatsoever is still disputed in some circles. What’s certain is that he did horn in on Wilson’s creative life, “contributing” lyrics to songs. As such, Brian’s ostensible comeback was considered compromised. In the meantime, his music was getting a second lease on life via the nostalgia craze American cinema indulged in the wake of the surprise success of George Lucas’ 1973 sleeper smash American Graffiti, which used “All Summer Long” over its closing credits. Après ça, le déluge. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” was applied to Shampoo for some sad, knowing irony. “California Girls” became a Bond punchline in A View To A Kill. “Don’t Worry Baby” sounded its note of poignancy in Tequila Sunrise. “God Only Knows” played over the elegiac montage that wraps up Boogie Nights. And on and on and on.

As a man of taste, Brian declined to participate in “Kokomo,” the gooey number the Beach Boys contributed to the soundtrack of Tom Cruise’s 1988 Cocktail. The never-not-funny video for that tune features feta cheeseball John Stamos “playing” conga drums with the fellows; of course he was wrangled in by Brian’s Beach Boy uber-nemesis Mike Love, the man behind some of the Beach Boys’ most hilarious musical and social miscalculations. 

Brian Wilson’s sad life and his eventual (largely triumphant) return to the proverbial stage was chronicled in Love And Mercy, one of the rare pop music biopics that doesn’t stink on ice. It was produced with Wilson’s cooperation, and depicts Wilson’s second wife, Melinda Ledbetter (who was with Wilson for four decades; they adopted five children together) as his actual savior. Bill Camp is appropriately terrifying as Murry Wilson, Brian’s resentful and physically abusive dad (it’s speculated that a childhood beating from Murry resulted in Brian’s partial deafness). Both Paul Dano and John Cusack are remarkable as the younger and older Wilson, respectively. 

One wonderful thing that the movie imparts is the optimism that Wilson hung on to even after enduring all the physical, mental, and emotional damage that life put him through. He really did believe in the two qualities of that movie’s title, which come through to us every time we hear a Beach Boys song. 

Veteran critic Glenn Kenny reviews‎ new releases at RogerEbert.com, the New York Times, and, as befits someone of his advanced age, the AARP magazine. He blogs, very occasionally, at Some Came Running and tweets, mostly in jest, at @glenn__kenny. He is the author of the The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface, published by Hanover Square Press, and now available for at a bookstore near you.