Phil Spector Hbo Movie Caught In Critical Crossfire

15 March 2013

Charging that the HBO film Phil Spector amounts to an insidious propaganda effort to rehabilitate the image of the onetime record genius who in 2009 was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of actress Lana Clarkson, friends of Clarkson picketed a theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where HBO screened the movie on Thursday. HBO's 'Phil Spector' murders the truth, one picket sign read. Specter has claimed that Clarkson killed herself with his gun in his Alhambra, CA mansion in 2003, and reviewers who have seen the film says that it raises a reasonable doubt about his guilt. At a screening in New York earlier in the week, Al Pacino, who portrays Spector, said that he himself is not sure whether Spector was actually guilty. I was left with an ambivalence, he told reporters. David [Mamet, who wrote the screenplay] thinks he's not guilty, but the movie takes a cryptic approach. ... I like the fact that it's a bit up in the air, Pacino said. Both supporters and foes of Spector have been critical about Mamet's refusal to consult with them on his script. Third wife Rachel told Entertainment Tonight that neither Mamet nor anyone involved in the production wanted to meet either her or Spector himself and decided to depict him as a foul-mouthed megalomaniac. On the other hand, a group calling itself Friends of Lana Clarkson issued a statement saying that the film incorporates the stench of artificial doubt that Spector was innocent.

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