Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Anton Corbijn made his first feature with this documentary about Hipgnosis. The studio was founded in 1968 by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell and produced a great many of the twentieth century's most recognisable album covers, from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Peter Gabriel and Paul McCartney. Its boldest decision is photographic. Corbijn shot a film about two designers who spent their lives working in colour entirely in black and white, so that when the covers appear on screen, colour becomes an event. That is less a mark of respect for the subject than proof of having understood it. At the centre of the story is the combative partnership between Thorgerson and Powell, two men who agreed on almost nothing, provoked each other for years and never fully reconciled once the work was over. Corbijn does not smooth this over. The film screened at the Telluride Film Festival in 2022. Who it is for: viewers interested in album cover design, seventies rock culture and the friction inside creative partnerships. Who it is not for: anyone who wants concert footage and songs from a music documentary.