Worth: $18.50
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Cast:
Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Noel Gallagher, Peter Gabriel
Intro:
Absorbing and occasionally poignant, Squaring the Circle has much to offer a general audience, but rock palaeontologists will be especially enamoured.
The creative and brotherly bond between Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell was forged during a police raid in 1960s Cambridge. You may not recognise their names, but you’ve almost certainly seen their artwork – under the moniker of Hipgnosis (pronounced as per ‘hypnosis’), Storm and Po are the design team behind an incredible number of iconic album covers from the late ‘60s through to the early ‘80s – most famously, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
Theirs is a story that contains many stories within – and it couldn’t be in better hands than Anton Corbijn. The Dutch photographer-music-director-turned-filmmaker made his debut feature with the impeccable Ian Curtis/Joy Division biopic Control. With his deep affinity for music and his considerable narrative nous, Corbijn crafts a tangibly enjoyable documentary in Squaring the Circle.
The film presents a classic rock line-up of talking heads, including Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and David Gilmour, 10cc’s Graham Gouldman and a bloke from the Beatles called Paul. Original Sex Pistol Glen Matlock and Joy Division/New Order cover designer Peter Saville also appear, while another big name – Colin Firth – is a producer.
Po talks about how he and Storm shared a flat and LSD together in London – the flat in which Roman Polanski shot his early thriller Repulsion – and how the drugs affected Po’s creative thinking. And like mad myth tales told around a rock royalty dinner table, there are tales of ego, excess, more drugs and wild imagination, where bank balances had no limits and no task was too out there if it meant getting the right image for the cover. From flying to a Hawaiian beach to get a (sedated) sheep to lie on a psychiatrist’s couch for 10cc, to popping over to the Swiss Alps to shoot a statue in the snow for Paul McCartney, the stories are jaw dropping. Best of all is the tale behind Pink Floyd’s Animals cover (you know the one with the inflatable pig flying above London’s Battersea Power Station) – too good a yarn to be spoiled here.
Full of quotable lines, one of the best interviewees is not a star from the era – it’s Noel Gallagher, who’s like a one-man Greek chorus explaining how much album artwork meant back in the day, and how it’s sadly neglected today. Just as Noel is famous for his sibling squabbles with Oasis brother Liam, Po – who is interviewed extensively here – had many tense moments with Storm, who passed away in 2013 and was, by all accounts, a rude, difficult yet somehow loveable person.
Absorbing and occasionally poignant, Squaring the Circle has much to offer a general audience, but rock palaeontologists will be especially enamoured.
