To call a portrait documentary an “affectionate tribute” to its lesser-known subject is usually redundant. That’s the whole point of adoring acknowledgment docs of this ilk— “shining a brighter spotlight” on [insert criminally undervalued subject here]. But Edgar Wright’s superb “The Sparks Brothers” documentary—about the inscrutable, feloniously overlooked cult art-pop band Sparks—radiates at such a vibrant, obsessive frequency of passion, it transcends the basic concept. Transmitting such a deep and moving paean to a band, the music they’ve created, the complex humans behind it, and bow-down respect for the long-haul resilience they’ve demonstrated over years of ups and downs, Wright presents a movie like a superdeluxe mixtape gift, adorned with loving attention to detail, gorgeous artwork, footnotes, and other bells and whistles. It’s a doc that is extremely easy to fall head over heels for regardless of your conversant knowledge of the band or its odd but catchy music.
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“How can a band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and overlooked all at the same time?” Wright himself asks about the stylistic anomaly and enigma that is Sparks and their puzzling, performatively absurdist career meant to provoke, but often just confuse with their acquired-taste idiosyncrasies. And over the course of nearly two and half hours (that whizz by at 180bpms), he unpacks and offers a perfectly encapsulating context and answer to the question.
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Sparks (us-against-the-world co-conspiring brothers Ron and Russ Mael) were, as one music journalist puts it, “The best British group to ever come out of America,” which is an accurate way to explain the eccentricities of a probably-too-clever-for-their-own-good band that (sort of) began as a bizarro theatrical glam rock version of T-Rex and Queen in the 1970s and then transformed a dozen times over, arguably birthed British synthpop and perfected the serpentine-like skill of constant skin-shedding reinvention (in reality they were Californian-born boys influenced by the inventive side of the Beach Boys who came of age in the ‘50s and ‘60s and were able to see the Beatles twice as kids).
Dozens of famous talking heads appear in the documentary—Beck, Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea, Jason Schwartzman, Mike Myers, super-producer Tony Visconti, Neil Gaiman, Patton Oswalt, Fred Armisen, Weird Al Yankovic, members of the Sex Pistols, New Order, Erasure, Duran Duran, Franz Ferdinand, Faith No More, The Go Gos, Sonic Youth and many more—all of them massive admirers, which speaks to the way Sparks are likely your favorite band’s favorite band (the enthusiasm of these various stories is infectious, though one wishes David Bowie were alive to offer his admiration for their theatrics).
Sparks were peculiar to the ears and the eyes. Apart from Russ’ operatic falsetto and Ron’s unusual, sophisticated, ever-evolving music and acerbic and witty lyrics, their stage presence was cartoonish and yet, deeply indecipherable. As John Lennon once put it, in a, perhaps apocryphal 1970s phone call to Ringo Starr in disbelief while watching Top of the Pops one night, “Marc Bolan is on the tele playing a song with Adolf Hitler!” (yes, the aloof Russ Mael wore a Hitler/Charlie Chaplin-like mustache for much of his career, and baffled audiences further with a deadpan stage mien that never broke). Like their music, challengingly mystifying visuals, either in artwork, on stage, or in music videos, would continue to evolve, perplex, and prod the viewer over the years (their design sense was chef’s kiss impeccable).
Discovered by Todd Rundgren in the late ‘60s (he produced their first record when they were known as Halfnelson), Sparks started as an avante glam-rock band that couldn’t get a foothold in the U.S. (something that mostly remains true today), relocated to the U.K., found great success in the mid-’70s, only to switch gears with artistically ambitious records that would always seem to alienate even their most ardent fans. When the glam-rock thing peaked, they would shift gears (Indiscreet, a mid-70s orchestral art-pop album and their version of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), shift gears again (Big Beat, a back-to-“basics”* rock record with confrontational, disdainful lyrics), and shift gears again and again and again until they had confused, dismayed or tired out most of their loyalists. (*not that basic, really).
Sparks were a riddle ahead of their time, ahead of the curve, and unfortunately for them, always five steps ahead of their audience at least. As one still-amazed and horrified talking head notes, they essentially jumpstarted ‘80s British synth-pop one year too early in 1979 with the help of the great disco and soundtrack producer Giorgio Moroder (No.1 in Heaven). Another tells a hilarious anecdote about confronting the Pet Shop Boys and why they never acknowledged Sparks as an influence (“Aren’t you naughty?” was the coy, evasive, Sparks-like response). A dangerous flirtation with the idea of career suicide seemed to tempt them like the child warned never to stick his finger into an electrical socket; Sparks always seemed to want to know why, explore limits, push boundaries, and test the theory after a career-reviving hit song. The thin line between pushing the envelope and willfully destroying it was usually only perceptible to the thick-as-thieves siblings themselves.
Truly understanding the impenetrable, genre-defying Sparks, who they are, and their intentions, musical or otherwise, over the course of a long and dense history, isn’t easy. Wright’s doc helpfully decodes the various elements that make up their complex DNA—their wry, sly, sardonic, slippery sense of pokerfaced aloof humor, sometimes adversarial nature, the questions of their sincerity and the way they played with insincerity, their creative restlessness, their provocative appearance, the manner in which they toyed with notions of masculinity and sexuality (many assumed they were gay, nope), and their cinematic tendencies (they were deeply influenced by ‘60s and ‘70s art film).
The latter inspiration ties much of the doc together thematically. Two films almost came together for the band, one with the great French comic Jacques Tati (he was too elderly and sick) and one with Tim Burton (he dropped out of the project, after the brothers invested six years of their life into the project). Their love of cinema would explain many things; their flair and gift for meaningfully loaded visual expression (boy, were there some awesomely outré music videos), but also the bitter taste of massive disappointment and failure; an experience those who work in the film industry often face, and usually more than once (Sparks dishearteningly low periods throughout the ‘80s and 90s are heartbreaking). Sparks should have had the Talking Heads‘ career and audience—one who appreciated left-of-center weirdos with artsy, visual, and creative tendencies—but they proved to just be too out there for most.
“The Sparks Brothers” is dense and loaded with story—which is why it takes 2.2 hours to tell it—but it is brilliant and as contagious as one of their jittery jagged, and skewed pop songs and complex as all the lyrics you need to read twice. It helps that the enormously talented Wright is a natural-born storyteller. Had he not become a filmmaker, Wright could have easily become a successful music journalist or tastemaking Radio DJ like the legendary BBC Radio One broadcaster John Peel. He was born to tell the Sparks story, and it feels like fate he could properly tell it. Sparks could be perceived as a snob band or a secret handshake band for hipsters with impossibly cool taste, but for one, Sparks was, in some ways, anti-cool, and Wright is the opposite of elitist. He manages the improbable magic trick of convincing even the casual admirer (like myself) that you’ve always loved and obsessed over Sparks (you may have liked some of those songs, but trust that when the film is over, you’re pouring over them all over again with a finer appreciative ear than you’ve ever had).
Wright’s—who self-depreciatingly and modestly dubs himself “fanboy” in a subtle chyron—debut documentary is deeply infectious and compelling, as if the filmmaker grabbed you by the lapel with entrancing Pied Piper enthusiasm, drags you into the basement, plays you 25 records made over fifty years (in order), tells you stories while shouting over the music and never once makes you feel less than grippingly absorbed. The doc’s climax is a magnificent crescendo too—a lovely, full-circle coda about “Annette,” the Leos Carax musical that Sparks wrote the music to, coming out in 2021—and a heartrending dedication to brotherhood, their tenacity, persistence of vision, and artistic envelope-pushing curiosity. Wright, a kindred spirit and perhaps the greatest devotee of all, makes the case for Sparks as one of the greats and then some, beyond affectionate tribute, offering something akin to poignant thank you note of gratitude to these artists for being so uniquely weird and wonderful. [A+]
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