Événement

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

(Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara, USA, 2010, HD, 82 min) "Stephin is an everyday sort of genius. Like, he just shows up every day," says director Kerthy Fix of the Magnetic Fields front man, Stephin Merritt. Strange Powers draws on co-director and fan Gail O'Hara's ten years of filming the band, creating an intimate portrait of Merritt, the man and the songwriter. The film, cleanly and forcefully shot by Paul Kloss is expertly recorded and mixed to showcase the remarkable range of acoustic instruments used by the band. It combines concert sequences of their polished, folk-inflected music with magically casual scenes of the band on tour and in daily life. Yet Strange Powers is more about the person than the performance, and the film thoughtfully explores the controversy over Merritt's comments about hip-hop in 2006, the rare twenty-year collaboration between him and Claudia Gonson and, finally, Merritt's 2008 move to Los Angeles to write for Hollywood.

Strange Powers won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the Los Angeles Outfest, and is an invaluable examination of this widely acclaimed songwriter that you won't want to miss.

"The sneaky, cockeyed tunesmithing of Stephin Merritt, the mind behind cult favorite the Magnetic Fields, finally receives a filmic examination in the well-crafted Strange Powers…Fans will drool at the generous access to the band." —Robert Koehler, Variety