The ultimate irony, given all of that, is that in 2021, there’s two Sparks films, because there’s my documentary about them, and then they, as you probably know, they have written a movie musical, Annette, for Leos Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The Sparks Brothers were dark-skinned identical twins who grew to nearly six feet tall. Sparks were always pushing forward with a new song, a new album, pushing the new music more than the old stuff, and I found that really inspiring. Were they into the idea? DEADLINE: How did you find the process? My parents did have two chart compilations, from around 1979, 1980, which happened to have two Sparks songs on them, so I had, on vinyl, Beat the Clock, and When I’m With You. Directed by Edgar Wright, 'The Sparks Brothers' premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. I had seen Dont Look Back, and I watched No Direction Home, because it was one of those things that even though I’d seen the other Martin Scorsese documentaries – I loved the George Harrison one, and I loved The Last Waltz – I’d never seen No Direction Home. Known for their quirky approach to songwriting, Sparks' music is often accompanied by sophisticated and acerbic lyrics, often about women or Shakespearean literature references, and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified in the contrast between Russell's animated, hyperactive frontman antics and Ron's deadpanscowling. I thought about that, but I just thought even if I had a longer cut that was a Director’s Cut, I think this is the thing that’s going to be reviewed, and this is the thing that I want any person watching it for the first time to get the whole story, and that’s important. The Sparks Brothers, Wright’s first foray into nonfiction filmmaking, is a celebration of that strange, wonderful and weird connection that many of us feel when we listen to pop music. But I knew in doing the interviews, and the archive, that the misses were as fascinating, if not more fascinating than the hits, and that was really important. Aaron and Marion Sparks made a small number of records during the years 1932-1935 and deserve wider recognition for having introduced "61 Highway Blues," usually associated with Mississippi Fred McDowell,… WRIGHT: Bob Dylan can get away with that. There’s tons of things on YouTube, and then you actually have to track down the masters. Then, after the gig, backstage, I said to Ron and Russell ‘Has anybody ever approached you about doing a documentary? Musicians as varied as Thurston Moore to “Weird” Al Yankovic are in the film as are comedians like Patton Oswalt. When the two Sparks brothers come face-to-face again, something unexpected happens: Jack forgives his brother. Nick Heyward from Haircut 100 is in the audience. The Sparks Brothers were dark-skinned identical twins who grew to nearly six feet tall. There’s 80 interviewees, from all different walks of life, and lots of stars from all over the planet, but it makes it seem like they’re all in the same studio, at the same time, which is impressive, in its own right. They’ve done the work. Even some Stones documentaries that are really good stop in the mid ‘70s, where they feel like there’s nothing more to say. I’d just done Baby Driver, but I had thought aloud, why isn’t there a Sparks documentary? There was a bit that I didn’t put in the documentary that was funny. It’s a story of perseverance and patience – a band that has had commercial success and flops but has always stayed true to themselves. I was getting into David Bowie, and Queen, and Roxy Music, and T. Rex, and then I would become aware of other Sparks songs, and some of the earlier ones, from Kimono My House, but then, I was even more befuddled. Are you a music doc guy in general? I didn’t have to twist anybody’s arm to be interviewed, but it was more of a Herculean feat of scheduling because I decided to film everybody in a studio. That’s kind of, how it started. Some of those people just flat out say, on record, that they were really inspired by them. It didn’t really seem possible, and a lot of other bands have been going for a long time, whether it’s The Who, or The Rolling Stones, as great as they are, at some point, they’re just kind of resting on their laurels. Producers, or researchers generally do some of the interviews, but I did all of them, but that was a great thing, because then it was a fun thing. I notice that Katie Griffiths was your archive producer. All Rights reserved. How different did you find it to making something like Baby Driver? I’d probably had the idea in my head, maybe out of frustration as being a fan. Directed by Edgar Wright. The other thing that I used to rely on, and I didn’t even own it, was in my local library, they had the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, and so from that, I could see Sparks’ chart positions, but that, in itself, didn’t tell the whole story. It’s like brothers at peace with each other, and also, complementing each other, in terms of their talents. The Sparks Brothers, from MRC Non-Fiction, made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year, notching a 100% critics score on … The Sparks Brothers follows in the footsteps of many music documentaries that came before it. How hard was it to get this financed? They always say never meet your heroes, but I was happy for that to not be the case. Because I think I’d like to do a documentary about you’. DEADLINE: When did you start thinking about making the documentary and how long did it take you to make that a reality? Then, Ron said, ‘Maybe I should put my phone number on the end of the credits’. The Sparks Brothers is a treasure trove for fans. Then for the next ten years of buying album, it revolves around pocket money. Aaron is remembered as fairly docile, while Marion's hot temper often embroiled him in fistfights. The Sparks Brothers is manna from heaven for rabid fans, and welcomes others to come on in and join the party. It’s people they’ve worked with in all walks of life, and then people who are not anything to do with showbiz, who have been touched by the band. Their "I Believe I'll Make a Change" also established a trope that would soon become an essential component in the blues standard "Dust My Broom." I’m really happy for them, because they’re almost as big film geeks as they are music nerds. The brothers … ‘The Sparks Brothers’ Review: Edgar Wright’s Irresistible Celebration of 50 Years of Art-Pop’s Brightest Sparks Edgar Wright delivers a fabulous tribute to … DEADLINE: I noticed on your list of quarantine watches, you’d recently seen No Direction Home and Zappa. We want to hear from you! Paired with guitarist Henry Townsend, Aaron recorded as Pine Top and Marion as Milton Sparks. (It also offers a little preview of … Pennebaker and two Martin Scorsese documentaries about him, I feel like I’m up to speed. With Beck, Jane Wiedlin, Christi Haydon, Dean Menta. WRIGHT: We talked it about the next day, and they said that over the years, people had approached them about doing documentaries, and they were either not completely convinced by the people approaching them, or they didn’t feel that the time was right, or whether they were even sure that they wanted to have a documentary. I guess there was a point where there was nobody that I didn’t want to talk to about Sparks, because I wanted to show beyond the amazing A to Z of stars that are interviewed in the movie. It’s just up to people to catch up with them. WRIGHT: What’s amazing, in the movie, the B plot, essentially, is their thwarted cinematic ambitions, having had Jacques Tati wanted to make a film with them, and then, he fell ill and it didn’t happen. Aaron was a child prodigy who learned the blues from an elderly backroom whiskey peddler named Arthur Johnson. She got in touch with us, when we put the word out, and she sent an email to the production team, and the email was basically her story, and this is now a woman in her late 50s, who remembers vividly the time that she jumped up on stage, and had to be pulled off Ron Mael. The Sparks Brothers, 2021. The Sparks Brothers' last known recording date took place on July 28, 1935. WRIGHT: I guess it was a longer process in, obviously, with a feature film, you do everything pretty much in one shoot, and even if it’s a long shoot, you’re still doing it in a concentrated period of filming. When you become a fan of somebody that’s maybe, a bit more of a culty band, you become an evangelist for that band, and the way the documentary came about is that rather than waxing lyrical every dinner party about how much I love Sparks, at some point, I’m thinking, it might be easier to make a documentary. WRIGHT: Do you remember the VH1 show Behind the Music? In a way, I’m as excited, or maybe even more excited, about Sparks virgins watching the movie. The Sparks Brothers, produced by Wright’s Complete Fiction and Fyre Fraud producer MRC Non-Fiction, was shot before the Covid-19 pandemic (although there’s … One of which is in the movie. Edgar Wright really wants you to listen to the music of Russell and Ron Mael, also known as Sparks. They just want to talk about the hits. For them to have two very different movies that celebrate them is amazing. WRIGHT: They’re great. Aaron sang on his own sides (one of which is the earliest recording of "Every Day I Have the Blues" under that title) and two of Marion's performances have piano accompaniment by Walter Davis. Both men dealt in bootleg liquor and had police records to prove it. Helping pave the way for an entire future of synth artists, brothers … Read Full Biography. Once that starts to come together, then you realize this is amazing. WRIGHT: I think the flash point all happened in the same night. DEADLINE: Did you ever consider going full No Direction Home with a six-hour cut? Edgar Wright's [Baby Driver] first documentary feature, The Sparks Brothers, chronicles the decades-long career and influence of the enigmatic rock pop duo Sparks. I used to enjoy watching the ones about the people I didn’t care for, more than the ones that I did. After the family relocated to St. Louis in 1920, Aaron received formal musical training at school and later developed his abilities as a blues and barrelhouse pianist by performing in speakeasies. On August 2, 1933 the Sparks Brothers and several singers from St. Louis followed Roosevelt Sykes to Chicago for a Victor/Bluebird session during which the opening line from "Every Day I Have the Blues" (sung by Elizabeth Washington on "Whiskey Blues") and "61 Highway" made their first appearance on records. I feel like Sparks has this laser focus on how to put everything into what they’re doing. It’s a promise that I can’t renege on. Even the response that I’ve had so far from people who didn’t know them, is that they feel, in the best way possible, schooled by the documentary, it fills in a bunch of missing jigsaw pieces for people. Even if it’s only five minutes, just tell me that story. I like watching documentaries about all sorts of artists. Grade: 4.5/5.0. Having had the lightbulb moment while watching the band with The Lego Movie director Phil Lord at the El Rey in LA in 2017, Wright spent the next few years traveling the world with the band – to Japan, the UK and Mexico – and talking with fellow Sparks fans including Mike Myers, Beck, Neil Gaiman, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and Washington Post journalist Dave Weigel as well as a plethora of people who have worked with the band over 50 years. DEADLINE: What was their initial reaction? Maybe, if you don’t know Sparks, you’ve definitely heard bands that are influenced by Sparks, and in watching the documentary, that becomes very clear. People have said, ‘It’s a very fast two hours’. My music knowledge relied solely on what was on the radio, what was on TV, and then, what records happened to be in my local record shop. They ar… Wright was slightly worried that the film, with its last live show filmed in November 2018, might have been slightly out of date thanks to a band that was always moving, but it turns out that’s not the case. Now, once I’d said it out loud, to them, now it’s a verbal contract. This is a band who have been going since the late 1960s. Both men dealt in bootleg liquor and had police records to prove it. SIDELIGHTS: A round-the-world trip that Micah Sparks and his brother, best-selling novelist Nicholas Sparks, took early in 2003 allowed them not only to visit many famous sites but to revisit their family history as well. There are a number of interviews in The Sparks Brothers. To me, that makes the music even more impressive. It wasn’t difficult to get people to talk about them. Sparks is comprised of brothers Russell and Ron Mael, who have released more than 20 albums over the decades. If anything, the more I know about them as people, the more impressed I am, and also, I always found it funny, as a fan, and this is beyond, even, the movie, they always seem to be Sparks the whole time. movie The Sparks Brothers (2021) yts & The Sparks Brothers (2021) yify … I really loved, and I’m not saying anything negative about it, the Frank Marshall Bee Gees documentary. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy. The Sparks-Withington is the easiest of the three to recognize because the observation holes are placed differently from the other two. We’ve got this real Rashomon-like breakdown of this gig. The Sparks Brothers (2021) | Official Clip Unrelenting cheerfulness would be monotonous and several downbeat moments are included. I think since 2002 with the Lil’ Beethoven album, Sparks have found this level of success, and acceptance, where they don’t have to bend to any commercial concerns. I read this email. “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 feels a little bit like The Tortoise and The Hare. Given the current boom in music documentaries – with films about the likes of The Velvet Underground and Billie Eilish scoring multi-million dollar deals with streamers – it won’t likely remain on the shelf for long. But with Edgar Wright behind the camera (and occasionally in front of it), this portrait of Sparks … It was kind of cool. Brothers Ron and Russell Maer have been performing for more than fifty years, dabbling in everything from prog rock to glam rock to new wave (while introducing the world to synth-pop with 1979’s “The Number One Song in Heaven,” one of their career high points). So, me and Phil are at this Hippopotamus gig, and I said to him that I think the only thing stopping this band from being as big as they should be is a documentary, because if you had an overview of the band, for people who find their discography daunting, and it would really go a long way to giving some context to them in a way that you could really, easily enjoy them, and Phil said, you should make that movie, and I said ‘ok’. I first pitched it to them in the autumn of 2017, and then we started filming in the summer of 2018, the first thing I shot was a gig of theirs in Kentish Town. Aaron and Marion Sparks made a small number of records during the years 1932-1935 and deserve wider recognition for having introduced "61 Highway Blues," usually associated with Mississippi Fred McDowell,…. So, if there was something like a band that I didn’t particularly like, I actually, sort of, really enjoyed watching those ones. They’ve managed to sound both of the moment, and twenty years from now, and yet their scope and influence have been sorely … Wright talks to Deadline about the “Herculean” effort of putting together his first documentary, which is an acquisition title at Sundance. I didn’t put that bit in the documentary, but that was very funny, to me. "…before anyone might ask, Ron is … With Sparks, they had periods of success in different countries, at different times, but it’s not a golden period, as in it isn’t like The Beatles, where they’re a very young band, and suddenly, they hit, and now you’ve got eight years of total dominance, and then, they split up. One of the things about Sparks is that they are quite enigmatic, and it was that challenge of, how do you tell the whole story, without ruining the question mark. Alexander collapses, relieved of the burden of his madness and his terrible crimes. Luckily, I didn’t have to shop it around, because MRC, which financed Baby Driver, had just started a documentary arm. The thing is, in the pre-internet age, with music, you just had to gather whatever bread crumbs you could of information. Sparks may be the most influential, culture-setting music group that you have never heard of. The roadie who pulls the woman, Julia Marcus, off Ron Mael happens to be The Rolling Stones’ tour manager. I think one of the reasons that they’ve managed to work together, for decades, is that they understand that they can’t do what the other one can do, and that they are a symbiotic unit. What was your relationship with the band and their music in the last 40 years? Back in those days, you might find just one album, or no Sparks albums. On August 24, 1934 Marion Sparks recorded as Flyin' Lindburg with fiddler Bill Lowry and pianist Peetie Wheatstraw. There’s a whole documentary about Exile on Main St., but it’s unusual, and I can’t actually think of another documentary where you follow the band, who never splits up, through five decades. With commentary from celebrity fans Flea, Beck, Jack Antonoff, Jason Schwartzman, Neil Gaiman, and more, The Sparks Brothers, takes audiences on a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers/bandmates … gravely If you are Tired of looking for a good place to download The Sparks Brothers (2021) Torrent Movie In HD, you are in the best place. They’re also a band that keeps pushing forward, from early success in the UK with the Kimono My House record through to radio success in LA, a proto-punk sound before pivoting to a Giorgio Moroder-produced synth sound and settling in to a certain level of success with 2002’s Lil’ Beethoven and a Franz Ferdinand-inspired renaissance with the FFS album in 2015. I guess, when you start a band, you create a persona, and I think they had really become that persona, and then, what’s even more amazing, is that they were happy to let me shoot some every day stuff with them, that seems, on the surface, mundane, where they’re maybe not as flamboyant as Bowie, or Freddie Mercury. Do you know what I mean? But then, it turns out that the last Sparks gig in Mexico is the one that’s in the movie.”. Movie score: 8/10. I went to see them, with Phil Lord, the director, who’s also a Sparks fan, and we’d actually seen them once, before, together, as well, at The Wiltern, during the FFS tour. Starring: Ron Mael, Russell Mael, Edgar Wright, Flea, Mike Myers, Fred Armisen, Scott Aukerman, Todd Rundgren, Steve Jones, Jason Schwartzman, etc. When I was a teenager, and I was getting more into some music, and actually buying the occasional album, or more often than not, copying from tapes, or other albums from the library. The Sparks Brothers (2021) Torrent Got Released On Jan. 30, 2021 & hold Documentary - Music - Category, Rated On IMDB With Over / ON The Movie Database. Aaron continued to gig throughout the region, working the 88s at innumerable house parties; in St. Louis saloons with names like the Hole in the Wall and the Dirty Inn, and gigging all over Bloomington, IL with fellow pianist Arthur Henderson. DEADLINE: One of the challenges, I imagine, was balancing it so that it would appeal to Sparks fans and newcomers? Maybe even that frustration of sometimes, showing people around my house YouTube clips of Sparks and starting to think, it’d be great if all of these were in one place, in high quality, but the night that it all really happened was at the 2017 Sparks gig in LA, at the El Rey supporting the Hippopotamus album. First and foremost, The Sparks Brothers feels like an exhaustive (at times too exhaustive) primer on the band’s prodigious output, Wright … Born to Sullie and Ruth Gant on May 22, 1908 in Tupelo, MS, the boys later took on the surname of Ruth's second husband, Carl Sparks. We zeroed in on things that we wanted to use, and sometimes, it’s just a case of finding the masters. (With brother, Nicholas Sparks) Three Weeks with My Brother (travel memoir), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2004. The Sparks Brothers is a 2021 music documentary film directed by Edgar Wright about Ron and Russell Mael, the creators of the pop and rock band Sparks. It’s not like I don’t like Bob Dylan, but I’m not a Bob Dylan aficionado, and in fact, when I watched No Direction Home, it was actually the first time I had seen it. I conducted all of the interviews, myself, which again, because this is my first documentary, I realized that that was, in itself, unusual. He’s one of the biggest tour managers in the world, and roadieing on the Sparks’ tour was his first gig, and then, we have her talking about it. “The Sparks Brothers follows in the footsteps of many music documentaries that came before it. He passed away in 1963. After serving time for manslaughter following a fracas at a dance in 1936, Marion settled down, got a steady job with a construction crew, and became a mild-mannered, churchgoing husband. It’s a funny thing to be with New Order, Duran Duran or Todd Rundgren and talk about Sparks. Sparks is an American pop and rock duo, originally formed as a Los Angeles band called Halfnelson in 1967 by brothers Ron (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals). Brianna Zigler; January 31, 2021 'The Sparks Brothers' is an Engrossing Celebration of Unsung Music Icons Edgar Wright's documentary debut is … I was making a few more videos because I was really trying to get Shaun of the Dead to happen, and it was difficult for me to do a TV series because I felt I would just lose the momentum of making the film, but music videos are easier to do because they’re shorter and I could try out techniques that I was going to do in the movies. WRIGHT: It was the other way around; I knew that if I made a 100-minute documentary, it could be entertaining, but it would be a little less rich, and there’s parts of the story I wouldn’t be able to tell. Russell looks, somehow, younger, and more handsome than before, 15 years after the fact. Tony Visconti is mixing it. Send us a tip using our annonymous form. Then, in the ‘80s, they went for a long time, six years working on a movie musical with Tim Burton, which again, didn’t materialize. They were a confounding proposition, and I think, in a way, the movie was an attempt for me to solve this riddle, but also, with each successive release, I was more confounded that Sparks were seeming to subvert the trajectory of every other band that’s lasted that long. To me, was a missing chapter of musical history, and I felt that they were the best, and most influential band, to not have a music documentary about them. Take a … It’s clear that The Sparks Brothers, the documentary that premieres today at the Sundance Film Festival, is a passion project about a band, consisting of Ron and Russell Mael, that has produced over 25 studio albums in a 50-year period. I think it rips through. WRIGHT: I was lucky in that having a name director for a Sparks documentary is a good thing, just in attracting talking heads, and getting the finance. But the nature of going around the world with them [takes time]. They were chameleons. Obviously, all of those people have their own story or legacy, but it’s like we’re just talking like Sparks fan boys, and they revert to the age they were, when they saw them on Top of the Pops for the first time. I’ve always been interested in documentary, but it wasn’t like I was actively looking to make a documentary. I basically had shot nearly all of the interviews before I started doing Last Night in Soho. The Sparks’ career graph is sudden peaks of commercial success, and then total indifference, and the band nearly splitting up, or albums that just don’t connect.