Mark Clark says TELSTAR's move from stage to screen is a success! (re-posted)
Telstar, about the complex and fascinating music producer Joe Meek and portrayed in a tour de force performance by Con ONeill, is one of those stories that you feel should have been told far more often than it has, but this absence has provided a greater, and frankly welcome, impact on the cinema screen. Meek was a music pioneer in the 1960s and managed to create both a new sound, and working environment in his custom built studio, in a flat on Londons Holloway Road above a leather handbag shop. From this eccentric musical birthplace he created Telstar, the 3 million selling record which was to seal his success, and be a part of his eventual downfall. The eccentric studio is in essence an extension of the shed at the bottom of the garden where a young Joe first played with sound, and the film begins with a delirious example of the studio and his process as were quickly introduced to characters and shuttled in and out of rooms; newly arrived band the Outlaws (very funny Ralf Little and James Corden) in one, a 3 piece chamber orchestra in another, a singer upstairs; all interconnected and controlled by Meeks unique system, and under the watchful eye of his producing partner and financier, Major Banks (Kevin Spacey sporting a hairpiece and a pretty convincing British accent). Into this strange environment comes Geoff Goddard (Tom Burke), composer of the song, believer in spiritualism, and part of the eventual requited and un-requited triangle of himself, Meek and pretty-boy rock n roll wannabe Heinz Burt (JJ Field). It is this triumvirate of performances by ONeill, Burke, and Field, amidst all the other excellent supporting players, that holds the story and provides its heart and focus for the tragic external, and internal, obstacles thrown in Meeks path. Meek himself was an extraordinarily complex individual, his driving genius for music experimentation was coupled with an amphetamine addiction, the weight of being a homosexual at a time when it was still illegal, a belief in the paranormal, a true desire for love and affection, but also a volatility and callousness that eventually helped to drive away almost all those closest to him. Ironically for many of the musicians who launched their careers with Joe Meek there was a radial of success out of his tragic story. The film is funny, caustic and complex, like Meek himself, and doesnt shy away from portraying Meeks darker side; and its in these moments of his emotional extremes that ONeill and the story really shine. From the heartbreaking rejection of Goddards anniversary gift, the disappointment and betrayal of his love for Heinz, to the moment when his home, and therefore his entire life are under threat. Nick Moran, who also wrote the Telstar stage play, shrugs off any first-time director baggage and the potential hamstring of a restricted budget, and plays to films strengths, giving Telstar a distinctive visual style and convincing submersion into the early and mid 1960s. The three stages of Meeks life are given variations of colour and light, bright technicolor for the main unfolding story, an almost monochrome patina for his later darker moments, and warm autumnal colours for Meeks boyhood memories. It might sound too obvious a filmic trick but it works. Shooting from his own screenplay, Moran interweaves these future and past scenes within the main story, and adds humorous visual motifs like old newsreel footage. Along with his surefooted direction of the actors themselves he has created a film that is both visually and emotionally resonant. Not just a forgotten tale about a man who probably changed the music industry, Telstar is a larger story about love, ambition, humour, imperfections and demons that begs not just a further audience for Joe Meeks music, but that deserves an audience of its own. Reviewed by Mark Clark on October 22nd from a screening at the London Film Festival. Telstar is out now in U.K. cinema's.