Full disclosure: I was a teenage Who fan. But even in the deepest throes of my devotion, I had no idea how cardinal a role Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp played in forming the Who, a lacuna in rock ‘n’ roll creation mythology that is corrected by “Lambert &Stamp.”
In this illuminating documentary, filmmaker James D. Cooper does cultural history a service in restoring the duo to their rightful place as the Who’s fifth and sixth — that’s according to Daltrey — members. What’s more, through some astonishing archival footage and perceptive commentary from Who guitarist Pete Townshend, the filmmaker puts the band in its complicated context as both reflector and creator of the postwar British teenage gestalt.
Lambert and Stamp were unlikely comrades. Lambert, son of classical composer Constant Lambert, grew up in the English aristocracy, attending Oxford and serving in the military. Stamp — described by brother Terence as an East London tough — was the son of a tugboat captain, a kid without direction until he fell under the spell of the French New Wave in the 1960s. (Terence, of course, would become one of the avatars of England’s own cinema of the swingin’ ’60s.)
When Lambert and Stamp met as aspiring filmmakers at Shepperton Studios, they hit on the idea of making a movie about a rock ‘n’ roll band as it morphed from unknown to famous; while searching for their protagonists, they visited a throbbing, cramped nightclub where a group called the High Numbers was playing and immediately recognized their destiny. They would eventually make a film, they decided, but for now they would also manage the band.
Drawing on interviews with Stamp — who died in 2012 — and Townshend and Daltrey, as well as with friends and early witnesses to the Who’s ascent, “Lambert &Stamp” in many ways hews to the conventional rock-and-roll origin narrative, including Spinal Tap-ish pretensions and self-indulgent excesses. (Lambert, who died in 1981, appears by way of old interviews and news clips.)
But what sets this story apart is how the title duo — as disparate as “chalk and cheese,” according to one crony — cannily masterminded the Who’s collective persona, itself a volatile mix of clashing temperaments and personal styles, to create an entity that resonated with the disaffected, sharp-dressing Mods who flocked to the earliest shows.
As “Lambert &Stamp” reveals, Lambert and Stamp played a crucial, heretofore largely hidden, role in shaping pop-culture history — not to mention the noisy, visceral, rebellious zeitgeist of th-th-th-their generation.
“Lambert &Stamp” (3 stars)
This documentary sheds light on the crucial role played by Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. in forming the Who.
Rating: R, brief profanity, some drug content and brief nudity
Showing: Sundance Cinemas Seattle
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