Britain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter, receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government, promoting whatever agenda they see fit. When a beautiful artist, Vanessa Ritchie, is commissioned to paint his portrait, she pushes Shorter to question his obedience to his manipulative handlers.
Direction
Watkins' fake-doc style feels illegally prescient
Writing
The 'peace is patriotic' rally scene still chills
Production
Concert sequences that out-Altamont Altamont
Director
Peter Watkins
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released months before the Summer of Love, it essentially predicted how the counterculture would be co-opted and sold back to consumers.
Paul Jones was an actual pop star (Manfred Mann) and his discomfort playing one adds queasy documentary texture; Jean Shrimpton was the world's first supermodel with zero acting experience.
GB
