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Phil spectre murder trial12/19/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() In fact, his father gassed himself with a hose in the garage, and Phil was nine or 10 at the time,” Jayanti says. “He says in the film basically ‘my father blew his head off’ and he was five or six at the time. The producer is infamous for overstating his role in some of his greatest works, from his contributions to Let It Be to allegations he added co-writing credits to songs he had no hand in crafting. Spector vividly recalls his lifetime in music, but many of his memories are exaggerated reinterpretations of his past. In addition to providing interviews, Spector also allowed Jayanti to use his music free of charge in the film, and although no written contract on that point was ever produced, the laws of fair use ensured The Agony and Ecstasy could use Spector’s music legally and liberally. There’s so much darkness underlying those happy, boppy, teenage-yearning songs,” Jayanti says. And also with Phil describing how he produces them, I wanted them to be able to experience the entire production as Phil intended it, which meant from beginning to end. “I felt it was crucial to get the audience to listen really hard to the music, with new ears, and hearing it as if they hadn’t heard it before. Jayanti says he hopes his doc is a “Wall of Film” that mirrors Spector’s own layered and revolutionary “Wall of Sound” technique: At its most intense moments, the movie creates a gripping harmony of sound and images by overlapping Spector’s rare interview footage and scenes from the first murder trial with the complete recordings of 21 of Spector’s most beloved songs and critical text on each track by biographer Mick Brown, who wrote Tearing Down the Wall. Finally, a judge’s gag order prevented Spector from speaking to Jayanti until the conclusion of the trial. In the days that followed, Spector’s legal team stormed the mansion in preparation of the first trial, which ended in a hung jury, and Spector kept delaying the remaining interviews. But that would be the last time the crew got Phil on camera. Their first session lasted three-and-a-half hours, covering topics like the birth of the Wall of Sound, Spector’s tough childhood, and anecdotes of his time with John Lennon. Jayanti and his crew planned to spend five days interviewing Spector on camera. What emerges is a portrait of Spector that paints the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend as both a music genius and a troubled soul soundtracked by Spector’s own music, from “Be My Baby” to “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” to “Let It Be.” In the doc, which is screening at New York’s Film Forum, Jayanti explores Spector’s mind via his own words Spector had granted Jayanti and producers BBC Arena a rare interview just two weeks before his first murder trial for Clarkson’s death. ![]() “He said it wasn’t a particularly important hearing, and at these things everyone is tired and bored - he thought it might’ve been nice to go with a humorous hairstyle,” the film’s director Vikram Jayanti tells Rolling Stone. However, as Spector says in the new documentary The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, that courtroom hairdo was just a joke, an innocent gag inspired by a Detroit Pistons basketball player. The photo came from a pre-trial hearing when Spector was charged for the 2003 death of actress Lana Clarkson at his Los Angeles home he was found guilty six years later. The odd choice of hairstyle - Spector relied largely on wigs - had many labeling him as a madman, an eccentric, a former musical great turned haunted recluse. If Phil Spector spends the rest of his life behind bars, one of the last enduring images of a man who described himself as “the legend that the legends wanted to work with” will be the producer in a courtroom, sporting an afro of astronomical proportions. ![]()
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