i watched gimme shelter last night. i was pretty sure it had been talked about on the blog, but i couldn’t find a reference and there’s nothing here in the “rock documentaries” topic where you’d expect it to have been discussed. it is a really interesting film though i am not sure what exactly it is a document of. the first half, which largely has pre-altamont footage from a show in new york showcases jagger’s unbelievable charisma and the band’s power live–though the one brief clip of ike and tina turner blows the stones’ performances away.
(i remember reading stanley booth, the true adventures of the rolling stones way back in the late 80s at the american center library in delhi–i don’t know if anyone else here has read it, it is a chronicle of this tour, and is a riproaring read–and he notes that the stones were terrified of ike.)
but even in this first half the focus is really almost entirely on jagger–richards and watts get some time, mick taylor looks out of place, and wyman is completely absent. i guess what i’m saying is that the first half is worth it only for the concert footage. the second half, the stuff at altamont, is incredible. it is probably hindsight and editing but from the moment the helicopter sweeps over the line of cars approaching the speedway it seems inevitable that this is going to end badly. jagger being coldcocked by a random fan as he disembarks is so perfect you almost wonder if it was staged.
the editing really is superlative–i love the way it captures the day as a steadily worsening trip, and you have to wonder that no one called it off well before the stones hit the stage–perhaps because they were insulated in their trailer from what was going on. and i hadn’t realized that the stones played the entire concert–apparently no one realized that hunter had been killed during the 3rd song. greil marcus is quoted in a salon.com article as saying that this was one the most powerful stones performances he ever saw–that they were literally playing for their lives, trying to drive the crowd back. i’m guessing the concert has never been released as a live album. i can understand why if so, but i’d still like to hear it.
watching it so many years after the fact, and away from the “end of the sixties†mythology, i am left with a lot of questions that the film wasn’t very interested in: especially about race in and around the rock scene in the u.s at that time. there’s a moment in the film where a white woman is taking collections for the panther defense league–but it turns out it is for defense against the panthers, killing them being one of the ways of defense (as the camera looks on, a young black man drops some money in her bucket); the audience is largely stereotypically, slobby hippies but the few black men (almost no black women) among them are natty and hip. it isn’t as though all the violence at altamont was of hell’s angels beating up black men (hunter may have been the only one) but it seems like such an unlikely mix of people: the angels, the hippies, the black hipsters, and the stones really closest in their own aesthetic to the black hipsters. well, i’m sure there’s a lot out there on this stuff if i were to just look for it.
as for the violence, i blame the jefferson airplane. god, that band was awful, and if grace slick told me to “cool down, man†i would punch someone too. probably marty balin.
If I’m correct, there’s a scene where Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh arrive for their gig–it’s sundown, and they are bathed in an eerie red glow. The camera records them being given the news that the Hell’s Angels are out of control and that Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane was punched in the face. The look of Garcia’s face is amazing–you actually see, in real time, his trip go bad. This terrified, “oh shit” look overtakes him.
Gimme Shelter is what great documentary filmmaking is all about. You start out with subject that is, in its own right, compelling. Then, out of coincidence, magic, luck, whatever, you end up capturing something even better, something else, something more. That is, you can utilize brilliantly all that the camera affords, you can be technically skillful, experienced, disciplined, etc. But only with a documentary can you transcend all of that and wind up with something great that you never could have prepared for. You’re in the moment and its happening.
Rather than Marty Balin, it was Paul Kantner who got punched regularly back in the day.
I didn’t post on this film Arnab, but I did write something about the Stones’ unreleased documentary, Cocksucker Blues.
I haven’t seen Gimme Shelter since high school, but I remember feeling vaguely relieved that it was about a time that had past. My friend Erick and I were doing all we could to learn about music, buying stacks of used vinyl in Springfield and St Louis, starting roughly with Velvet Underground as our touch-stone and then following the trjectories out both back in time (Stones, Kinks, Nuggets box), forward (Galaxie 500, Robyn Hitchcock) and then all of the dozens of connections made from there. My friend meanwhile followed a musical path into the 60s west coast scene; Dead boots, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Doors, etc. I never could make much sense of it, and prefered listening to Stax-Volt soul, and all of the then-current crop of bands that used 60s influences so well, like The Smithereens, Spacemen 3, Love and Rockets and so on. My point is that the two films that made me not want to explore too deeply the West Coast 60s aesthetic were Woodstock (which I thought sucked then. And I’m not alone) and Gimme Shelter which seemed genuinely disturbing – frightening.
Cocksucker Blues (a film I think you’d really enjoy seeing now, Arnab), is nauseating in its mission. If anyone genuinely hates the Rolling Stones, it would be hard to watch these two films and not at least come away with either an understanding or grudging respect for their obstinate survival. If you admire the band, these films almost prove their supernatural powers.
I recently watched much of the Lennon documentary Imagine recently and was struck by how fragile John Lennon kept seeming to be; lashing out with that sharp wit but little else to defend himself against friend and foe alike (Everyone seemingly except Yoko). Part of it must come from the fact that the Stones’ power came from their live performances, and there was almost nothing of the Beatles or Lennon, post Germany and the Cavern Club, that could compare to what the Stones could do on stage.
actually, john, garcia and lesh don’t look terrified at all. garcia seems bemused and lesh actually looks like he might like the idea of balin being punched out–he wasn’t the most popular guy was he?
mark, i agree about the stones live (at least in that era)–though for the beatles it became impossible to play live. but i have to say that films like gimme shelter partly make me resent that no one followed people like ike and tina turner around for a year with a camera and captured them live–we get just a glimpse in gimme shelter and it is really something. booth in his book talks about how the stones on that tour paid their dues in a sense by having all these black performers open for them. i think chuck berry opened on part of the tour, and there was one stop where bemused by seeing the stones play traditional blues to adoring crowds he let loose with a set of his own. (i could be misremembering some of this–it has been almost 20 years since i read the book).
i think gimme shelter is most of all a triumph of editing. there were a large number of cameras let loose in the crowd (george lucas and walter murch among them!) and zwerin, who wasn’t at altamont, edited the “found” footage together.
here, by the way, is the airplane incident.
I recall Garcia looking being acid-terrified, which is not the same as normal physiology-terrified. But you wouldn’t know that, Arnab, being the square that you are.
I agree with John: Arnab is a narc.
Imagine is good, too. I agree with Mauer that the scenes where Lennon is getting attacked by the press are hard to watch. Al Capp is a perfect asshole. And what the hell is Timothy Leary doing smiling and shaking the guy’s hand after what he says to Lennon’s face?
Lennon and Harrison are childishly mean-spirited about McCartney in that breakfast scene (or is it tea they are having?). As it did for Mike Love, meditation made Harrison a bigger prick than he already was.
And Murch did some of the sound on Gimme Shelter, Arnab. He’s a sound guy, not a cameraman.
unfortunately, you’re wrong about murch. he may have ended up getting a credit only for sound, but he was filming alongside lucas. see here:
it is tough to tell garcia’s emotions since his face is obscured by a beard. but why would anyone want to ingest acid? it tastes like burning.
Oh my, how unfortunate. It’s not clar that Murch had a camera and Lucas had a camera and both were shooting. It seems to me that Lucas was filming and Murch was, as you say, alongside him.
And Phil Lesh claims here that “Jerry flipped, I mean you can see it on his face in that footage. When word hits that the Angels have taken over, he just freaks.”
i insist on knowing how many feet away from lucas murch was at all times, and whether he ever touched the camera.
you probably have more in-depth access to these kinds of things, john–i’m just going by the fact that in a researched article on the film, which included an interview with murch, he was referred to as a cameraman.
also, i don’t know if garcia flipped or not, or was terrified or not–i’m just saying that to me he looked more bemused than anything, and that lesh actually seems to find the whole thing exciting; he’s smiling and laughing as they’re talking about it. but i have not studied garcia’s repertoire of facial responses to external stimuli.
lesh, on the other hand, was clearly happy that the angels had belted balin and were embarking on mayhem and is now covering up his bloodlust by slandering the dead garcia. this much, i think you will agree, is beyond interpretation. it is, the way that mount everest is, and alma cogen isn’t.
Hey Mauer, can you fix that link to the Paul Kantner info?
Yes, sorry – there’s just a space embedded to the end of the link.
Just delete the “%20” that appears at the end, or use this:
http://www.gotarevolution.com/skipandsigne.htm
Mauer, don’t you wish you could have found this in Springfield or St. Louis?
Yowza. That is pretty incredible – at least the price is.
jesus, it was at $50,100 when i last looked at it. people are crazy.
Ahh LSD, those were the days and absolutely no burning as far as my brain cells will allow such specific sense memories.
So that VU acetate was sold for $150,300. The highest bidder had also recently purchased – and received positive feedback for – a Nintendo Wii ($335), The Beatles greatest hits CD (red) for $3.50 (shipped from Thailand), The Beatles’ Help CD for $3.20 from Bulgaria, and some Frontline flea medicine for medium sized dogs for about $40 (free shipping). Well done, sugarnsweet21.
mauer, the auction is still going on. It’s now up to $151,100 with more than a day left. So bid now!
i believe that’s lou reed’s aim username.
The VU record is back on eBay. Apparently the winning bid was a prank (the bidder apologized and told the seller that he can barely afford to buy gas). The record can now be had for $.99
Arnab, re: your link. The footage of Marty Balin getting belted has been removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement. But I found a site that has posted even better footage of the brawl here. That’s Marty on the right.