Film Festival 09 - The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector
The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector
USA/UK 2008, 100m
Director: Vikram Jayanti
Festivals: Amsterdam Documentary 2008; Sydney 2009
Composer, "Wall of Sound" pop producer extraordinaire and now
convicted killer, the almost mythically reclusive Phil Spector
agreed during his first trial to grant an unprecedented on-camera
interview in his Hollywood mansion to filmmaker Vikram Jayanti.
Scornful of the world's unworthiness to judge either his lifelong
brilliance or his criminal guilt, jittery from medication, and
recalling myriad landmark collaborations with decades of musical
greats, he's riveting, an indelibly American fuckup. Jayanti's
layering of unreliable testimony with Top Twenty rhapsodies and
courtroom reality TV might have been dreamt up by David Lynch or
Kenneth Anger. No aficionado of 60s pop should miss this film - or
expect to hear those soaring two-minute epics of love's rapture in
quite the same way afterwards. - BG. "The most compelling filmed
account ever of his life, art and state of mind& Spector talks
straight to camera, spinning stories about his groundbreaking
productions for The Ronettes and The Righteous Brothers, his
friendship with John Lennon, and his enmity with Paul
McCartney& Spector's songs - sublime in their innocence,
towering in their grandeur - serve as a sort of haunting Greek
chorus to the unfolding drama& Hearing these songs [performed
in their entirety], and watching marvellous archive footage of The
Crystals, The Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner, provides
a reminder of Spector's monumental, enduring musical
accomplishments." - Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph. "An unmissable
music documentary." - Andrew Male, Mojo
