“The Sparks Brothers” is a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with Ron and Russell Mael celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks.
Enigmatic, basking in their obscurity, Sparks is one of the most prolific music bands of all time, boasting 25 studio albums and over 500 songs. Edgar Wright’s documentary “The Sparks Brothers” is a joyful celebration of the experimental pop duo. Reverential and surface-level as it may be, the doc’s an absolute blast — an artist sharing his obsession with another artist via the medium he knows best.
Originally from California, Ron and Russell Mael had a rather conventional childhood and adolescence — until, influenced by a crazed amalgamation of AM FM radio mixes and French New Wave cinema, they formed a band of their own. At first, the brothers stuck to emulating popular acts like The Who. They had trouble getting signed, and Sparks’ debut album flopped upon release. It wasn’t until their third album, “Kimono My House,” that they experienced a semblance of success in England.
Europe responded to the band’s wild swings from glam rock to punk to electronic to classical with much more enthusiasm than America did. Wright traces Sparks’s tumultuous career, the Maels continuously having a hard time getting recognition, despite their collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (who reminisces fondly), and a special little tribute to the band by Paul McCartney himself. At the very least, Sparks’s status as underground icons was solidified. They stayed true to themselves and kept releasing album after album — in fact, their latest one came out last year.
Throughout the documentary’s lengthy running time, you’re bound to be jotting things down, reminding yourself later to check out songs like “My Baby’s Taking Me Home.” The film’s palpable affection for their music, and the men themselves, is infectious. Wright peppers the doc with memorable soundbites; Ron was known as “Adolf Hitler on the keyboards” because of his mustache; they’re referred to as “the best British group to ever come out of America.” “We predate Kraftwerk when it comes to computer songs,” Russell says proudly. Another standout snippet, among many: “Always judge an album by its cover. If something has a dreadful cover, don’t buy it.”
The film doesn’t have a shortage of fun facts: Ron has a huge snow globe collection; the two scrawny men used to play football in high school; Russ made a “French New Wave” film in UCLA, and the band later collaborated with legendary French filmmaker Jacques Tati on a project that dissipated. All the while, the filmmaker toys with different stylistic techniques: he cleverly blends animation, archival footage, and celebrity interviews, breaking the fourth wall from time to time (Jason Schwartzman says he doesn’t even want to watch the movie, but he will because he’s in it).
Speaking of celebrities, Wright obtained access to a roster of legends, like Beck, Neil Gaiman, Duran Duran (yes, both of the Durans), New Order, Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mike Myers, Patton Oswalt, Fred Armisen… The list goes on and on. Wright himself can’t help but appear and wax poetic about his heroes. The wide scope of public figures demonstrates how hugely influential Sparks has become over the decades.
Ron and Russell are charming, odd, wistful, optimistic in a melancholy way. They speak of how, “with advances in medical technology,” there will hopefully be hundreds of more Sparks albums. Considering the fact that, just recently, they’ve managed to play almost 300 songs — their entire catalog — in one massive, weeks-long set, they just may pull it off.
At 140 minutes, “The Sparks Brothers” is both too long and not long enough, racing through their timeline (especially the later albums) without hearing much of the music. Wright has set himself an impossible task of encompassing the entire vast Sparks discography in one film. He sure as hell gives it his best shot. Despite the lack of real insight into their private lives, this is one doc that moves like a bullet. If you deem yourself a connoisseur of pop music history, or if you’re an aspiring artist struggling to make it, then you owe it to yourself to see “The Sparks Brothers.”
In Theaters Friday, June 18th
