We were pleasantly surprised when we learned that a documentary about the notoriously private, misanthropic, surly, funny and genius songwriter Stephin Merritt was in the works.
“Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt & The Magnetic Fields” directed by Kerthy Fix and longtime Merritt photographer Gail O’Hara, has been ten years in the making. The three-minute trailer displays what we hoped – unfettered access to Merritt. The opening bit with a taxi driver quizzing Merritt on who he is and why someone is making a documentary about him makes us believe the filmmakers found the right note for this (and the scene is a perfect window into Merritt’s personality). Merritt is mostly known in indie rock circles (a circle which we’ve already grown largely tired of) and has missed out on the mainstream acclaim he so richly deserves. A songwriter in the Irving Berlin sense of the word, Merritt is a rare craftsman in an age of dime-a-dozen hitmakers. One of the things that makes Merritt’s songwriting so valuable is that for all his dour, sarcastic and insincere couplets, they are often met with a rejoinder that reveals a much richer emotional depth which runs completely counter to diary-entry earnestness that counts as “honesty” these days.
The trailer also gets insights from longtime Merritt friends and collaborators such as Neil Gaiman, Claudia Gonson and Daniel Handler, as well Sarah Silverman (?) and Peter Gabriel (who has covered The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book Of Love”). If there is only thing we’re bummed about it’s that the film only seems to cover the territory between his landmark album “69 Love Songs” (seriously, if you don’t have this, buy it now) and 2008’s “Distortion.” However, we do hope the filmmakers at least asked about his early years on Merge and his songs which were much more synthpop driven compared to the more baroque arrangements he’s adopted of late.
Check out the trailer below and keep your eye on the concert listings in your town as The Magnetic Fields are currently touring in support of their latest album Realism. Merritt, naturally, hates touring so it will be a rare chance to catch them live.