Lambert & Stamp

"Lambert and Stamp" aren't familiar names. They were two guys who knew nothing about Rock and Roll and had no connections, but they went on to nurture into existence one of the most indelible boy bands of its generation.

In the early 1960s, rock wasn't Christopher Stamp's main passion. He was drawn to auteur-driven, art-house cinema and the message it inspired: The great star of the movie is not the actor, it's the director.

The films of Jean-Luc Godard and Fran�ois Truffaut were all about rebellion and the individual, themes that pulsated through the hearts and mind of a group of teenagers at the time who called themselves the Mod movement.

Fortunately for Stamp, his dreams grew into a reality when he met the artistic man of his dreams at a hip coffee shop. Kit Lambert was the posh son of a famous composer, a charismatic man who took life by the balls. The two formed a bromance, forged in their love of art and their desire to be filmmakers.

They were artists with a unified dream and no subject, and no one was going to just hire them to direct a movie, so they decided to create a documentary film that featured a boy band. If the band became popular, it would launch their names into stardom and people would pay them to make movies.

That dream never became a reality, but the rock band they promoted sky rocketed -- a funny-looking little Mod band called High Numbers that no one cared about and probably wouldn't last... that is, until Lambert and Stamp made them into The Who.

James D. Cooper's premiere feature documentary captures the bohemian spirit of the Mod, new wave auteur in a film that moves forward mostly through the recollections of talking heads. In order to match the primary style of Lambert and Stamp's footage (probably shot on a 16mm newsreel stock), Cooper makes all his modern day interviews black & white. It's a style that works and the content is endlessly fascinating, because of the complex and compelling relationship between these two men.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray are treasures from the time period, archival footage and promotional films, material that didn't make it into the feature.

"Lambert and Stamp"
Blu-ray
Rated R | 117 minutes
www.lambertstampmovie.com/