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Stitch's Movie Madness: 'Gimme Shelter'
19 years ago
General
Okay, so I thought I'd do some quickie little movie reviews for those bored enough/movie-geek enough to want to catch up on some offbeat and interesting (to me, anyway) flicks. I'm kicking off with they Maysles Brothers' infamous 1970s Rolling Stones documentary 'Gimme Shelter'.
"None of that Pennebaker shit," Albert Maysles (brother of co-director David Maysles) recalls being told by Mick Jagger at the beginning of filming on what would turn out to be one of the greatest and most infamous rock films ever made. Flush with success and riding high on a wave of charming, devil-may-care arrogance, Jagger was likely bitching about director D.A. Pennebaker's earlier, sunnier filmed documents of mid-60s musical happenings like Bob Dylan's British tour and the Monterey Pop Festival.
Given the dark, violence-tainted film that 'Gimme Shelter' turned out to be, Jagger got his wish, though he may have regretted it. If Woodstock '69 represented the pinnacle of the 'peace and love' generation's lofty ideals, then the Stones' disastrous concert at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway later that year likely represented the death rattle.
300,000 blissed-out Stones fans descended on Altamont for a poorly-planned free concert four months after Woodstock. Four of them died, three more or less accidentally. The fourth was stabbed to death after pulling a gun on a Hell's Angel. That shocking act of brutality capped a day rife with violent outbursts and uneasy tension between the fans and the Angles, who were given the task of acting as unofficial 'security' at the concert and paid with $500 worth of free beer.
Armed with lead-weighted pool cues and often openly contemptuous of not only the fans but the bands as well, the Angels in retrospect were a thunderingly poor choice to be the guardians of order at a concert where flower-power idealism and acid-fueled freakouts were the order of the day. Beatings and scuffles broke out with alarming frequency, and even one of the members of opening act Jefferson Airplane ended up getting knocked cold by an over-enthusiastic Angel.
It's not all gloom and doom, of course. Given unprecedented access to the Rolling Stones, the Maysles crew films the band as they take the stage in New York for an electrifying performance, and also as they rehearse 'Brown Sugar' at the Muscle Shoals music studio (the song would debut at Altamont). Ultimately, though, it's the concert footage that gives the film its haunting power.
The Maysles' remarkable film not only documents the music and charisma of the Stones at their peak, it also perfectly captures the grim tension that seemed to hang in the air over Altamont. "Who is fighting, and why?" asks a bewildered-looking Mick Jagger to the crowd, not too very long before one Meredith Hunter, stoned out of his mind and armed with a pistol, is knifed to death not 20 feet from the stage (the murder is chillingly captured on film). Put into historical context as the moment when the era of peace and love may have symbolically met its bloody end, it's a remarkably valid question, though as 'Gimme Shelter' troublingly demonstrates, there may not be any answer.
(Do yourself a favor and watch the Criterion DVD edition of 'Gimme Shelter'. It comes with hours of outtakes, radio interviews and commentary that helps put the film into a rich historical context. It's also been beautifully remastered.)
"None of that Pennebaker shit," Albert Maysles (brother of co-director David Maysles) recalls being told by Mick Jagger at the beginning of filming on what would turn out to be one of the greatest and most infamous rock films ever made. Flush with success and riding high on a wave of charming, devil-may-care arrogance, Jagger was likely bitching about director D.A. Pennebaker's earlier, sunnier filmed documents of mid-60s musical happenings like Bob Dylan's British tour and the Monterey Pop Festival.
Given the dark, violence-tainted film that 'Gimme Shelter' turned out to be, Jagger got his wish, though he may have regretted it. If Woodstock '69 represented the pinnacle of the 'peace and love' generation's lofty ideals, then the Stones' disastrous concert at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway later that year likely represented the death rattle.
300,000 blissed-out Stones fans descended on Altamont for a poorly-planned free concert four months after Woodstock. Four of them died, three more or less accidentally. The fourth was stabbed to death after pulling a gun on a Hell's Angel. That shocking act of brutality capped a day rife with violent outbursts and uneasy tension between the fans and the Angles, who were given the task of acting as unofficial 'security' at the concert and paid with $500 worth of free beer.
Armed with lead-weighted pool cues and often openly contemptuous of not only the fans but the bands as well, the Angels in retrospect were a thunderingly poor choice to be the guardians of order at a concert where flower-power idealism and acid-fueled freakouts were the order of the day. Beatings and scuffles broke out with alarming frequency, and even one of the members of opening act Jefferson Airplane ended up getting knocked cold by an over-enthusiastic Angel.
It's not all gloom and doom, of course. Given unprecedented access to the Rolling Stones, the Maysles crew films the band as they take the stage in New York for an electrifying performance, and also as they rehearse 'Brown Sugar' at the Muscle Shoals music studio (the song would debut at Altamont). Ultimately, though, it's the concert footage that gives the film its haunting power.
The Maysles' remarkable film not only documents the music and charisma of the Stones at their peak, it also perfectly captures the grim tension that seemed to hang in the air over Altamont. "Who is fighting, and why?" asks a bewildered-looking Mick Jagger to the crowd, not too very long before one Meredith Hunter, stoned out of his mind and armed with a pistol, is knifed to death not 20 feet from the stage (the murder is chillingly captured on film). Put into historical context as the moment when the era of peace and love may have symbolically met its bloody end, it's a remarkably valid question, though as 'Gimme Shelter' troublingly demonstrates, there may not be any answer.
(Do yourself a favor and watch the Criterion DVD edition of 'Gimme Shelter'. It comes with hours of outtakes, radio interviews and commentary that helps put the film into a rich historical context. It's also been beautifully remastered.)
