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The Sparks Brothers (Edgar Wright, 2021)
🕑 Added 2021-07-12 18:13:53 +0000 UTC
Occasionally I enjoy a film so much that I am a bit suspicious of the experience. Why does this particular movie seem to be pushing all my pleasure buttons? Is it pandering to me? Granted, I work to temper this suspicion with a recognition that films (at least most films, anyway) are made to be enjoyed, and that enjoyment can take a lot of different forms. So why was I riveted through all 140 minutes of Edgar Wright's Sparks documentary?
Well of course, part of the pleasure comes from the fact that I am a fan of Sparks, and have been since the 1980s. Ron Mael's songwriting exhibits a kind of brilliance that is at once tapped into the strange world we live in and from a very different time. He's a songwriter of the classic tradition of Cole Porter, Ivor Novello, or Jacques Brel, focused on life's minutiae but utterly expansive in his emotional scope. Not many people working today operate on this register, although Stephin Merritt comes to mind. (I guess there's also Andy Partridge, but he's much more besotted with the Beatles, and his own imaginative universe.)
But there are dozens of documentaries about rock bands, and most of them move chronologically through their subject's careers, as Sparks Brothers does. What sets Wright's film apart is the fact that it has a narrative and thematic throughline, and it is as satisfying as it is suspect. The critical and commercial vicissitudes of Sparks lend themselves quite easily to a particular Western concept of the unsung hero, the misunderstood visionary. The Sparks Brothers convincingly argues that Sparks are as influential, complex, and aesthetically rich as, say, the Stones, The Who, or The Kinks. (In fact, this film sometimes feels like an elaborate infomercial aimed at securing Sparks a berth in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.)
But the fact that the band hadn't received its due is a fundamental element of the film, and this taps into a feeling that most people share on some level. (I know I do.) Why am I working as hard as I can and still not reaping my due rewards? This is a comforting kind of frustration, one that valorizes duty and conviction and the melancholy self-regard that comes with not being appreciated in your own time. Why doesn't everyone see just how special we are, The Sparks Brothers seems to ask?
To be fair to Wright, this frustration is baked right into Sparks' later work. Ron and Russell's primary bailiwick used to be romantic longing and disappointment. But (wonderful) later songs like "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'?" or "Balls" or really the entirety of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman are all about the elusiveness of success, of being left behind while knowing you ought to be leading the pack. It's not unlike contemporary kid-lit, actually, which reliably rhapsodizes about lonely outcasts who -- surprise! -- are actually wizards or supernaturally gifted or the sons of demigods. Sparks has entered its humblebrag phase, and while this is a legitimate area for creative inquiry, it does lead to a kind of self-congratulation, for both the band and its fans.
We see various former members of Sparks mentioning how they were unceremoniously fired by the Maels, and almost all of them stress that they felt no animus about the ouster. The going line is, these guys are stone-cold geniuses with truckloads of integrity, so if I had to be left behind in the service of their art, so be it. I'm sure this is partly because Ron and Russell are great guys, but it does provoke skepticism in terms of what we're being asked to believe, not just about Sparks but the nature of artmaking itself. After all, integrity is comprised of a series of choices. It is not some abstract entity that demands its own sacrifices.
All that having been said, I watched most of The Sparks Brothers with a big, stupid grin on my face. I may not completely trust Wright's argument, but he delivers that argument flawlessly.
