Phil Spector: Reasonable Doubt?

 

 

Phil Spector (2013)

Directed by David Mamet

HBO, 92 minutes, Not-rated (strong language, murder gore)

★★★ ½

 

I avoided Phil Spector when it came out in 2013. Like many people, Spector (1939-2021) struck me as a creep, independent of his two trials for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. I wasn’t alone. In many ways, those who reviled Spector presaged how the public would later regard Harvey Weinstein–right down to the coincidence that Spector’s given first name (which he seldom used) was also Harvey.

 

A better way of considering Spector is whether he was his generation’s Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. If that fails to ring any bells, Arbuckle was a major movie personality in the silent era until he was accused of the rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe. He was acquitted after three trials (1921-23), but Arbuckle’s reputation lay in tatters and he was informally blacklisted. David Mamet, who wrote and directed Phil Spector, asks viewers to consider whether Spector was indeed like Arbuckle–perhaps an innocent man. Sort of. Mamet hedged his bets by prefacing the film with the statement, “This is a work of fiction. It is not ‘based on a true story.’” That disclaimer alone helps explain why Phil Spector got reactions that ranged from okay or tepid to outrage that Mamet would deign to rewrite history.

 

I’d rate it PG, for Pretty Good. But make no mistake; Phil Spector was not a nice man. He was a bombastic egoist, a foul-mouthed jerk, an autocrat, a gun nut, abusive, a druggie, and as modest as Donald Trump. Though rich as Croesus, Spector quite possibly suffered from for-real delusions of grandeur. Yet, the unassailable fact is that he was a musical genius. From 1962 into the 21^st century, Spector produced, played with, and wrote for a veritable who’s who of pop and rock n’ roll luminaries: The Beatles, Cher, Leonard Cohen, Dion, Ben E. King, The Plastic Ono Band, The Ramones, The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes, Ike and Tina Turner…. The list goes on and on.

 

Like Arbuckle, though, Spector’s legacy is unlikely to recover fully from what did (or didn’t) happen the night of February 3, 2003, when Clarkson was inside of Spector’s mansion and died from a bullet to her head. Spector infamously remarked that Clarkson “kissed the gun.” The possibilities were an intentional suicide, an unintentional suicide, an intentional murder, or a night of drinking and drug-taking in which the facts were fungible. No wonder it took four years for the case to come to trial.

 

Mamet wrote a mix of a play, cinéma véritié, and alt-history that focuses on the first trial in 2007. Defense attorney Bruce Cutler (Jeffrey Tambor) has serious doubts about Spector’s guilt based on the path of the gunshot and blood splatter. He attempts to recruit his high-powered colleague Linda Kenney Baden (Helen Mirren) for his legal team. Two problems. First, she’s sick as a dog and second, she thinks Spector is guilty. That is, until she meets Spector (Al Pacino) and looks at the evidence. She’s not charmed–she knows he’s a sexist megalomaniac–but she’s savvy enough to realize that the case against Spector is riddled with reasonable doubt. Mamet’s script zeroes in on the cat-and-mouse relationship between Spector and Kenney Baden as they play intellectual games–neither of them willing to yield an inch.

 

Those who felt Mamet ignored prosecutor arguments and tried to whitewash Spector overlook the facts that Mamet based much of the script on actual court records and that Kenney Baden did raise enough reasonable doubt that the first trial ended in a hung jury. She was unavailable for the second trial in 2009 in which Spector was found guilty and sentenced to 19 years to life.

 

Did Mamet play fast and loose with facts? Check it out for yourself and decide, but do so with the mindset that under American law, a loathsome person is not necessarily a murderer. How would you define reasonable doubt? If you’re not buying it, enjoy cameo roles from Chitwel Ejiofor, Linda Miller (as Ronnie Spector), Rebecca Pidgeon, and Mamet’s daughter Clara. Not to mention riveting and intense lead performances from Mirren and Pacino.

 

Rob Weir