This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 12, 2010 - The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector; Directed by Vikram Jayanti; Saturday, November 13, 9:30 pm; Shown at the Tivoli
Those who have followed the life and work of record producer Phil Spector over the past few decades have long been aware of something that his more recent history only confirmed: He's a madman. Decades before he took the center ring in the most recent freakshow/Trial of the Century, stories of paranoia, violence, obsessive behavior and weaponry of all sorts (seriously, what kind of person would pull a crossbow on Leonard Cohen?) had become almost as central to his reputation as the great "Wall of Sound" recordings of the 1960s or his role as producer-of-choice for one-half of the Beatles after their 1970 breakup.
When a waitress/actress named Lana Clarkson was found dead in his mansion in 2003, many people probably felt that the inevitable had finally happened, given Spector's reputation for pointing guns at people. For his part, Spector, who hasn't been associated with any major recording since a 1981 Yoko Ono album, seemed to relish his role as poster boy for Court TV, issuing bizarre statements (Just four weeks before Clarkson's death, Spector had given a strange interview to a British newspaper in which he described himself as "relatively insane") and showing up for his trial in outlandish clothes and wigs that only a Van de Graaff Generator could love.
How do we reconcile the Phil Spector currently serving a 19-year murder sentence in a California prison with the "First Tycoon of Teen," the pop genius responsible for "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"? Can we draw an imaginary line to separate the disordered Spector of today from the troubled 18-year-old who entered the record industry with a song inspired by his father's suicide? Do we even want to? The question is indirectly raised - and never fully answered - by "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector," a BBC-produced documentary that examines Spector's life from multiple perspectives.
To borrow a recording metaphor, you could describe the film as running on four tracks: It starts with the music, via performances of some of Spector's biggest hits (like this one and this one), most of them presented in their entirety. The second track provides commentary on the songs by way of on-screen captions taken from Mick Brown's biography "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound." While these two tracks capture Spector's past, a third shows his more recent history through a montage of news clips and trial footage that reduce the details of his arrest and conviction to a flurry of indecipherable activity, with participants left unidentified and their testimony cut into fragments.
And finally, we get Spector himself in a lengthy, self-serving interview/monologue in which he casually dismissed the charges against him, nurses old grudges (What's he got against Tony Bennett?) and digresses on everything from the films of Alfred Hitchcock (he dismisses Brian Wilson's "Good Vibrations" by comparing it to "Psycho") to his disappointment at never having received an honorary university degree. Names are dropped, though never those of anyone who might share credit for his records. The judge, prosecutors and police are ridiculed with an entirely ungrounded sense of confidence. Is the interview a staged performance, a misguided effort to shape publicity, or simply the tunnel vision of a man so lost in a world of his own devising that he no longer bothers to pay attention to anything outside of his domain? I think I place my vote on the last.
It could be argued that director Vikram Jayanti is letting Spector off easy, offering no difficult questions or challenges to the producer's slightly jaded version of events. Even the courtroom footage is used to highlight Spector's own account, trivializing the prosecutors and their witnesses. Rather than whitewashing Spector's story, Jayanti allows him to deliver it with no mediation, no comment: We see nothing but the man himself and his own skewed vision of the world. It's probably the longest public statement Spector has made in nearly 50 years, and when it's done, he's just as much a mystery as ever.
Here's the trailer: http://vimeo.com/14797433
My Dog Tulip
Directed by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
Saturday, November 13, 1 pm, Sunday, November 14, 5 pm
Shown at the Hi-Pointe
J.R. Ackerley, best known for his 1960 novel "We Think the World of You," acquired an Alsatian named Queenie in 1946; their relationship appears to have been the most lasting and significant in his life. I haven't read "My Dog Tulip," his book about their years together (the animal's name was changed for publication), but I've heard it described as one of the strangest animal stories in English literature. I suspect that the film version of "My Dog Tulip," an inventive piece of do-it-yourself animation, is very close to the tone of Ackerley's text - a sincere and loving memoir with a pretense of detachment and an authentic sense of bewilderment as if the author were wondering just how he fell into sharing his life and apartment with such a strange creature.
"My Dog Tulip" is a plotless series of reminiscences, part anecdote, part essay, based on Ackerley's observations of canine life. He notes Tulip's sleeping habits, describes trips to the veterinarian in great detail, finds meaning in the dog's methods of marking territory and, in the film's longest sequence, goes to great - and largely unsuccessful - lengths to find her a suitable mate. The randomness turns out to be deceptive; by the end of the film, this account of man and dog turns out to have been a very well-rounded story after all, the story of two lives being shared.
Using a deliberately sketchy, unfinished visual style, animators Paul and Sandra Fierlinger do justice to the unique tone of Ackerley's narration, by turns intimate and analytical. (It certainly helps that the narrator is voiced by Christopher Plummer.) This is animation for adults, in the best sense - not in the snickering adolescent cartooning of a "Fritz the Cat" (and in spite of its emphasis on canine sexuality), but in its whimsical juggling of ideas and images and a free-associating design that wanders from scribbled gags to a warm naturalism, often in the same scene.
(Also worthy of celebration: "My Dog Tulip" is the first release of the reborn New Yorker Films after its fall into bankruptcy a little more than a year ago. )
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-CEDsZstdI
Stroke
Directed by Rob Nilsson
Saturday, November 13, 1 pm
Shown at Webster University
One of a series of nine completely improvised films made by Rob Nilsson with casts taken from the streets of San Francisco, "Stroke" offers such strong characters and drama that I was surprised to learn that the cast was made up of non-actors. There are repetitive stretches, as in most improvisation, but there are also surprisingly strong performances and characters that ultimately seem taken from the real world. The plot, such as it is, involves two men, a poet who has suffered a stroke and a compassionate friend who looks after him, both of whom end up living on the streets. There are scenes involving strip clubs (watch for a killer impersonation - possible unintentional - of Harvey Keitel in "Taxi Driver"), blackmail and misfired attempts at romance, but the real attraction here is watching how far the actors can go while working without a net.