2010: A Musical Odyssey 2010 / Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields / USA 2010
Independent New York band The Magnetic Fields is fronted by Stephin Merritt – a man whom the press hailed as the best songwriter after Cole Porter. Ten years in the making, this intimate documentary gives us the first up-close look at his work both for The Magnetic Fields and for off-Broadway musical productions.
New York songwriter Stephin Merritt gained international recognition for his band The Magnetic Fields with the release of 69 Love Songs in 1999. The triple album, for which he actually wrote sixty-nine original songs "about love”, uses wit and sophistication to reference all kinds of styles and genres from the entire history of the modern song – from traditional country to electronic pop. Merritt became an influential figure on the contemporary pop-music scene, with the press hailing him as the best songwriter after Cole Porter. Filmmaker Kerthy Fix followed him with her camera for ten years, recording his work in musicals and for The Magnetic Fields. The film also captures Merritt’s relationship with his bandmates and long-term manager Claudia Gonson. In this portrait of an artist considered one of the most prominent singer-songwriters around today, we also take a look inside American culture via interviews with The New Yorker magazine critic Sasha Frere-Jones, comedian Sarah Silverman, musician and theorist Drew Daniel, and Peter Gabriel.
85 min / Color, DIGIBETA
Director Kerthy Fix, Gail O'Hara
/ Dir. of Photography Paul Kloss
/ Music Stephin Merritt, The Magnetic Fields
/ Editor Sarah Devorkin
/ Producer Kerthy Fix, Gail O’Hara, Alan Oxman
/ Cast Stephin Merritt, Claudia Gonson, Sam Davol, John Woo, Shirley Simms, Daniel Handler, Mike Yesenosky
/ Contact Kerthy Fix
www: strangepowersfilm.com
Kerthy Fix immediately launched herself into cult film as production assistant on the independent movie Slacker (1991). She coproduced the six-part series Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, directed by Jennifer Fox for the Sundance Channel (2008). While working on Strange Powers she also completed the screenplay for a film about Christine Jorgensen, the first widely-known transsexual; the script won the Newfest competition in 2006 and was presented at the Tribeca festival in 2010. The director is currently filming a documentary on the radical female band Le Tigre as they travel on tour. Gail O’Hara hails from Washington. She has worked as official photographer for Stephin Merritt and his bands (The Magnetic Fields, The Gothic Archies, Future Bible Heroes, The 6ths) since 1994. Apart from her Canon Rebel, she also uses a Rollei German spy camera from the 1960s, polaroids and Lomo cameras.
Kerthy Fix
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United States of America
E-mail: [email protected]
Pavel Klusák
Freelance journalist
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