NY1 Movie Review: "The Agony And Ecstasy Of Phil Spector"
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A new documentary that examines the life of legendary music producer Phil Spector opens next week at the Film Forum in Manhattan. NY1's Neil Rosen filed the following review.Say what you will about legendary music producer Phil Spector -- eccentric, egomaniacal, convicted murderer. All are true, but so is the fact that he's a musical genius. Now there's a new documentary that looks at his life and features an extensive rare interview with Spector himself. It's called "The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector."
His hits from "Be My Baby" to "Da Doo Ron Ron" are part of the American songbook. He changed the face of music with his unmistakable wall of sound and he elevated pop music to an art form.
Comparing himself to Galileo and da Vinci, we get a portrait of a man who knows the immeasurable contribution that he made to the world of music in the 1960s, yet he feels massively under- appreciated. Along the way, he speaks about how he crafted the many memorable songs played countless times on radios and jukeboxes.
Sitting in front of the white piano where John Lennon recorded "Imagine," a tune that Spector produced, we get Phil Spector's take on producing The Beatles' "Let It Be" album, what it like was working with Tina Turner and how he got the sound just right for all those hits with The Ronettes.
The interview with Spector was conducted during his murder trial in 2007, where he was accused of killing B movie actress Lana Clarkson. The trail is explored on film while Spector's comments about the case are offered up throughout.
Spector comes across in this no holds barred interview as an extremely opinioned guy, with fascinating, controversial views on stardom, the music industry, the American justice system and his unusual, reclusive life.
Director Vikram Jayanti's film is engrossing, but the trial itself gets a bit shortchanged. The focus is more on the music. There are also subtitles that comment on the songs themselves that go by too fast to fully read and are a bit distracting as they appear while Spector is talking.
"The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector" opens next week at the Film Forum in Manhattan.
Neil Rosen's Big Apple Rating: 3 Apples