Who are they?

This very lively documentary tells the story of a couple of would-be filmmakers, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, who got involved with an obscure English rock band called the High Numbers and played an integral role in making them into the musical juggernaut known to us as The Who.

Filmmaker James D. Cooper uses new interviews, archival footage from multiple sources, extensive (and very nearly omnipresent) excerpts of The Who’s music to tell a fascinatingly tangled tale of the band’s internal history, and much else—the sixties in England, the personal and creative trajectories of the principals (Stamp and Pete Townshend in particular, Lambert and Roger Daltrey almost as much), the convoluted relations of art and business, etc.

Fast-talking Stamp is not always easy to follow and the accents and overlapping music sometimes mystify. But the multifaceted drama never stops being intense and intriguing.