Warning, this upcoming show with Ron and Russell Mail about the movie Annette contains spoilers.

Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without booms?

Where would we be without good? No, Tos into Gutenberg? It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without

books? From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblot, and this is Bookworm.

The music you just heard was composed for Bookworm by Ron and Russell Mail,

who comprise the band Sparks, and they are my guests today,

not just because of the recent documentary that's brought them to

world attention, but to the magnificent new movie Annette, a film directed by Leo Carracks

and which opened the Cannes Film Festival, and the movie is in theaters in Los Angeles as you

listen to this. So yes, walk and put on your masks and get into the movie theater. This is a

movie to see on screen. This is a movie whose textures and beauties are outstanding.

This is, you know, a movie by artists.

Now, Ron and Russell are brothers, and I'm going to be asking them questions that either of them can answer,

but I may direct them. Can you tell me, Ron, where the idea for Annette first came from?

Well, originally nine years ago, we wanted to do a long narrative musical piece. I mean, we're kind of used to doing

discrete three- and four-minute songs. And we had earlier done a radio music for Swedish national

radio, an extended piece called The Seduction of Mingmar Bergman. And we enjoyed that experience

so much that we wanted to do it again.

And so we came up with for the idea of Annette and kind of kind of the genesis was we wanted

to do something with fewer characters than then the seduction of Mingmar Borgman so

...