Speaking on Clarkson’s behalf are her mother Donna, a half-dozen friends, various professional associates and even legendary filmmaker Roger Corman. On the legal side, most of the important figures are present, including prosecutor Alan Jackson and defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden. Plus, Spector’s daughter Nicole is an increasingly important interview subject and a consultant on the series.īut then the last two hours are almost completely about Clarkson and the trial, which is treated with a non-sensationalistic attention to detail that was hard for the media to achieve when it was actually occurring. And that isn’t a bad assortment of people, including familiar names like Darlene Love or Paul Shaffer and many singers and session musicians and fellow producers and songwriters. The documentary has a couple of hours in which the majority of the time is spent on old interviews with Spector and conversations with whichever of his colleagues and artists were willing to go on-camera to at least partially sing the praises of a convicted murderer. The first episode skips ahead from its examination of Spector’s rise to introduce Clarkson and details about the murder, breaking chronology so that no stretch of adulation is allowed to go unchecked without the reminder of the story’s destination. The documentary starts with the 911 call from Spector’s driver reporting the murder. These aren’t “contradictions” that you want or need to reconcile. Oh and in 2009, he was convicted of the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson and spent the rest of his life in prison. He battled various addictions and psychological demons. He wasn’t in the first round of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees (he had to wait until 1989), but he probably should have been.īut Phil Spector was difficult. He launched Tina Turner’s career, wrapped the career of the Beatles and then produced several of their defining solo hits. He had a signature production tone with an unimaginably cool name - The Wall of Sound. Before he was 25, he’d written countless teen pop hits. Plus I’d argue that the choice of how to end the documentary undermines almost everything that came before.Īs the basic historical recap goes: Phil Spector reshaped popular music, mostly for the better. There are weird aesthetic choices, limitations of structure and drawbacks to the self-selecting talking heads. Joyce and Don Argott’s Spector isn’t in denial about Phil Spector’s myriad imperfections - it would be hard to be - and it does an admirable thing in attempting to give Lana Clarkson a status beyond “tragic victim.” But the documentary is awash in questionable decisions that left me scratching my head instead of wanting to engage with any of the challenges in its portrait. 'Vice' to Seek New Home After Being Pulled From Showtime
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