Weekend Rental: Gimme Shelter

Martin Scorsese’s ‘Rolling Stones’ concert film Shine a Light, which documents, among other things, a 2006 concert at the Beacon Theatre has just opened to mostly positive reaction at the ‘Berlinale’ festival in Germany.  This homage to sixty-something rock gods by a sixty-something cinema god (who has used their music for his soundtracks more than a few times) may be a lost on any younger generation without nostalgia for the music or the moves. The thing is–these days concert films are a dime a dozen, and with the spectrum of pupil-dilatingly-psychedelic (Flaming Lips) to violently-overboard (G.G Allin) memorable stage antics, it becomes increasingly hard to impress. 

Whether a “Stones” fan or not, the Maysles Brother’s The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter (1970)  is sure to etch itself on any viewer’s memory.  The reactive, direct-cinema film documents a free concert at the Altamont Speedway in California. It was supposed to be ‘Woodstock West’ and ended up being the complete opposite–long since considered to be a metaphorical nail in the coffin of hippie idealism and the mark of bad times to come. It is a tense and dark document, to be sure; but also fascinating in the way it reveals itself and its shaken rock-star protagonists. An often self-reflexive work, Gimme Shelter challenges the ethics of documentary film and entertainment itself. Pick up the beautifully restored and extra-loaded Criterion edition where possible.