REVIEW: Questions Remain in Messy, Sordid Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector

But when Spector starts answering questions about his alleged guilt or innocence, he rails against a jury that "voted for George Bush"; he motors on about the percentage of the populace that has already decided he's guilty or insane or both. And it's in those moments when he really does seem unhinged, talking so fast he sometimes slobbers a bit as he grabs at whatever wisps of logic he can pull from the air. This is more painful to watch than it is interesting or informative, worsened by the fact that Jayanti has organized -- for lack of a better word -- the film in a way that tries to put songs produced nearly 50 years ago in a contemporary context. He cuts the interview footage with performance footage from the likes of the Ronettes, Ike and Tina Turner, and the Righteous Brothers, in a heavy-handed attempt to contrast the beauty Spector has given the world with the heinousness of the murder. Even then, he can't just allow the lush grandness of the Wall of Sound speak for itself: He has to present the words of rock critic Mick Brown (author of Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector) via subtitles, intoning pretentious observations about this or that song's "romantic yearning" and declaring every other song a masterpiece.

Jayanti often layers Brown's useless and tiresome subtitles over dialogue, or, worse, over silent footage from the first trial. The result is a kind of junior high-school psychoanalysis project. We get a predictably ominous retrofitting of the Crystals' 1962 "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)." And John Lennon's 1972 "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" plays over some of the Lana Clarkson head shots that were used as court evidence. (They're poignant enough by themselves, thanks.) During his interviews, Jayanti digs deep with questions like, "How does pain figure into your work?"; at least he doesn't ask, "Where do you get your ideas?" which is a small blessing.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector is painful to watch, partly because the material is so clumsily patched together and partly because there's just no way to feel good, or even just OK, about Phil Spector as he is today. You don't need a hifalutin rock critic to point out how poignant "Be My Baby" sounds in the context of Spector's sad, horrific story. Better to allow it a life of its own, independent of its creator's downhill slide -- to treat it as a flower he planted in better days, rather than a work of art with its roots stretching deep into a troubled mind.

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