GIMME SHELTER - #99

Gimme Shelter is a movie in conflict with itself. Intended as a performance film chronicling a celebratory Rolling Stones concert to close out their 1969 tour, Gimme Shelter ends up being at odds with its own reality. Due to the tragic events of the day, the movie can no longer be what it’s supposed to be. Yet, the three directors--Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin--don’t settle for just telling the story of a concert gone wrong, they instead crack the whole thing open and sift through the damage, making it as much about the mechanics of nonfiction and a subject’s relationship with the camera as about the night the Rolling Stones tried to put on a free show.

The Stones gig at Altamont Speedway, just outside San Francisco, is legendary. For some, it is the death knell of the 1960s. Following just a few months after Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock, a music documentary that Gimme Shelter has much in common with--both don’t just show what is happening onstage, but the business wheeling and dealing required to put such an event together--except the peace and love vibe of the bigger festival is all but gone, drowned in one long brown acid rain.

The lead-up to the day shows us the Stones out on the road, in the recording studio, and in the boardroom. Altamont almost didn’t happen, as a large enough venue was hard to procure. It’s only in the 11th hour that the racetrack becomes an option, leaving the band and its crew to set the whole thing up overnight. Hindsight shows it would have been better to postpone and put some more time into it. The stage is barely up  before the crowds arrive, and the logistics aren’t completely thought through. From the get-go, the performance spot is overtaken by attendees. They climb lighting towers, swarm the backstage area, and even take up residency on the stage itself. Patience dwindles, communication breaks down, and the event’s security, the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, gets testy. During a performance by Jefferson Airplane, one of the Hell’s Angels even pastes singer Marty Balin in the face when Balin tries to break up a fight. The Grateful Dead arrive and immediately turn around and leave once they hear what has been going on.

By the time the sun has set and the Stones take the stage, there’s no turning back. The band stops and starts, trying to quell the violence. The bikers line the front of the stage. In one fateful moment, one of the cameras even captures a Hell’s Angel, standing mere feet from Mick Jagger, tripping his face off (judging by his appearance, he might think this literally). Mick either doesn’t notice or just phases him out. The Angels eventually chase the dude off into the crowd, as if surrendering one of their own to maintain their appearance of power.

We only see Meredith Hunter twice in Gimme Shelter. The first time, we have no reason to suspect we should know who he is. He just stands out in the crowd: a tall African American man in a bright green suit. The second time we see him, the Stones are playing “Under My Thumb,” and Meredith Hunter is being attacked by the Hell’s Angels, one of whom stabbed him and killed him.

It’s interesting that the filmmakers didn’t sequester this terrible turn for a third-act reveal. I suppose given that it’s a known news event, and essential to why the movie exists, there is no real reason to withhold the information. Instead, at the start, we are told that there were four births and four deaths during Altamont via a radio broadcast playing for Charlie Watts in the directors’ editing suite. Though the full extent of what went down isn’t explained, we do hear from one of the Angels calling in to defend the fatal decision--the murdered man kicked someone’s motorcycle--and it’s the only explanation Gimme Shelter offers. The film is an observation, not an investigation. There are multiple cuts back to the studio throughout the film, to Watts or Jagger watching what we are watching, a post-modern commentary that was far ahead of its time. Watts remains stone-faced, his intense eyes peering back at the camera probing him for a reaction. Jagger, on the other hand, is visibly shaken when they roll the stabbing back and forth for him, like Jim Garrison toggling the kill shot on the Zapruder film, pausing on the moment we can see Hunter’s gun, and then the biker’s knife raised in the air. The singer tries not to show too much, but his poker face isn’t all that sturdy, leading to the infamous shot where he stares into the camera, and they freeze on his ambiguous expression. Is he angry that the lens would expose him like this, or is it the reaction of a little boy caught where he shouldn’t be? It’s an eerily private moment--we are spying on the man spying on himself.

In this, the Maysles brothers and Zwerin are far ahead of their time, laying the groundwork for filmmakers like Errol Morris to dig deeper into their subjects, urging the kind of self-reflection and confession that would ultimately become de rigueur on reality TV. Beyond parsing through the crime, Gimme Shelter also sets the standard for concert films, defining the genre with its mix of performance and business. Shot with multiple cameras, Gimme Shelter captures the Stones at their bluesy peak, having settled into an almost laconic groove, offering more laid-back and countrified versions of even some of their bigger, faster hits like “Jumping Jack Flash.” There are no obvious overdubs, and no added sheen to the cinematography. The concert scenes here are dirty and raw. Whether a Stones fan or not, you’ll understand why they were so popular in 1969 and why they have endured--though Jagger chicken dance remains as confusing to me as ever. (Sexy? Really, ladies?) Music aficionados are also treated to an amazing version of Ike and Tina Turner covering “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” But you also don’t have to care about the music at all to find Gimme Shelter compelling.

The Stones aren’t exactly innocents at the start of Gimme Shelter, nor do the Bay Area hippies in the audience appear to be as peaceful and gentle as their mythology would have us believe. Yet, there is still a feeling of something passing at the close of the film, of a naïveté being put to bed. Perhaps it’s that they can’t maintain the illusion that it’s all good vibes and love any longer, that they have to acknowledge the darkness that lies within the scene and, naturally, the individuals that define it. As the film fades, the directors cut back to the audience first walking into Altamont, an eager and polite group, but they layer a live rendition of the movie’s title track over the top, its lyrics a portent of the inevitable evil to come.

IN COLD BLOOD - #781

“Sure, I’m for hangin’, just as long as I’m not the one being hanged.”

Two things come to mind when trying to figure out how to tackle a respected perennial like Richard Brooks’ 1967 adaptation of In Cold Blood. One, how we’ve come to take truth and reality in entertainment with a mountain of salt; two, anyone who thinks we’ve become desensitized to film violence hasn’t seen this movie recently.

In Cold Blood is based on a book byTruman Capote, whose novel-length reportage is said to have invented the true crime genre. One could argue that the book represents Capote’s truth and isn’t strictly the cold hard facts, but the author’s meticulous depiction of all the details surrounding the 1959 murder of the Clutters, a family of four in Kansas, nevertheless changed how the common populace consumed information about despicable crimes. Capote focused not just on the brutal killings and the investigation that followed, but also the things that got the main players to that terrible night. The book sticks with the murderers all the way to the end and up the steps of the gallows.

Brooks, who wrote the screenplay for Dassin’s Brutal Force [review] and also directed films like the Conrad-adaptation Lord Jim [review] and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, doesn’t stray too far from Capote’s approach, even if he must distill the events into more concise morsels. He is also required to dramatize the story, it’s the nature of his medium. There are actors who must stand in front of the camera and re-create the details. It’s a sticky business. If In Cold Blood has any flaws, it’s that Robert Blake’s incisive portrayal of gunman Perry Smith creates a little too much sympathy for the devil, and the victims are little more than objects serving the main narrative. How is it that we know of the relationship between Smith and his parents, but nothing of the relationship between the murdered parents and their two children?

Then again, that might have made what was to come too harrowing, and the re-enactment of the horrendous murder of four is already plenty unsettling without us having much emotional connection to the dead beyond the prototypical nuclear family they represent.

It’s actually an interesting storytelling trick. Though Brooks begins In Cold Blood on a linear track, he skips the crime itself, showing Smith and his partner, Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) approach the Clutter home, but then cutting to the next morning, when the bodies are found by neighbors coming to pick Nancy Clutter (Brenda C. Currin) up for church. What follows is a circuitous journey around the American west by the killers while, back in Kansas, Police Detective Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) gathers evidence against them. Brooks only takes us back to the dreadful incident when Perry Smith at long last confesses.

This dreaded flashback hits in unexpected ways, both for how it plays out in terms of actual “plotting,” but also for how unsettling it is. For the most part, the violence happens off-screen, yet Brooks gives us just enough detail that we feel the horror in full. It’s a gut-punch of a sequence. Weigh it against countless episodes of Law & Order opening with descriptions of countless off-screen murders, and In Cold Blood packs more power than the whole of them combined.

Part of the reason for that is Brooks has the benefit of truth on his side. We know this happened, we know the consequences are real. Yet, perhaps the use of the term “horror” is not without merit, as there is something to the writer/directors’ pacing that is not unlike a horror movie. He makes us wait, he withholds what we know is coming, and he allows us to become complacent. And almost complicit. As an audience, we’ve been fascinated by the chuckling Dick and the twitchy Perry, who are more alive than not just the victims, but the police and the Capote stand-in, the invented reporter Bill Jensen (Paul Stewart, Kiss Me Deadly [review]). Forget cop shows, years of westerns and gangster movies have put us on the side of the outlaws, and In Cold Blood compels you to ask just who it is you’ve been rooting for.

And then, in a complete rope-a-dope, after it’s turned you against these charismatic criminals, the film compels you to ponder whether their end is fair. Brooks sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy early on by having the cop challenge the reporter, saying (and I paraphrase) that first the press asks why the cops haven’t done more, until they catch the killers, at which point the papers start shouting “police brutality,” only to finally try to excuse the bad guys they previously demanded be brought to justice by decrying the conditions that drove them to their heinous acts. While Brooks skips the middle bit, he does end by raising some questions about the effectiveness of capital punishment. Once again, it’s the details that matter. He is meticulous about showing the process of preparing Perry Smith for his final punishment, and this time, he lets the violence occur within the frame. In his hood, Perry is rendered anonymous, a lone figure dropping to his death, hanging there in gruesome isolation, a freak show for us to gawk at and recoil from.

Brooks’ In Cold Blood came along at an interesting time. Though on the surface it looks like an old Hollywood film--familiar actors, it’s black-and-white at a time when color was used for pretty much everything--In Cold Blood embraces the emerging freedom of the late 1960s. Dick’s coarse language, the matter-of-fact references to carnal acts, the homoerotic teasing--these all speak of the progressive cinema of the time.

As further evidence to how In Cold Blood straddled the line between fiction and nonfiction, the eyes on this movie poster are from images of the real killers, not the actors who portrayed them.

Even in how it is put together, In Cold Blood is anything but a studio picture. Brooks takes us far from the sound stages and back lots of the traditional Hollywood assembly line. Most of In Cold Blood is shot in the actual locations, including the Clutters’ home and the gallows where the killers were hanged. At one point, Currin even rides Nancy Clutter’s own horse. It’s a rather eerie turn, one presumably done to remind viewers that what they are watching actually occurred in the not-too-distant past. In an age where we’ve become jaded by countless scripted television shows passing themselves off as verité, it’s amazing to consider how bold--and chilling--a move this really was.

Of course, one cannot talk about In Cold Blood and not mention Brooks’ phenomenal collaborators. First, there is the music of Quincy Jones, which is effective and sparse, contemporary without being overbearing. Second, the photography of Conrad Hall (Fat City [review], The Rose). How many out there first watched In Cold Blood after seeing the famous scene where the rain on the window causes a tearful reflection on Robert Blake’s face in the cinematography documentary Visions of Light? Hall’s vision here is amazing, straddling a line between reportage and art. There is a beautiful clarity to his images, and a depth of field, that adds credence to the dramatization. Watching In Cold Blood is like watching a film noir that’s really happening.

The sum total of all these efforts defies age. In Cold Blood remain 100% effective and just as relevant. It’s also just a damn fine movie, one anyone can watch without knowing its origins, and it would be just as intriguing. It’s truth that would play equally as well as fiction.

There are plenty of extras on the Criterion Blu-ray for In Cold Blood, including several vintage pieces with Truman Capote. Perhaps of most interest is the short documentary film With Love from Truman made by Albert and David Maysles upon the release of the book, In Cold Blood. We see Truman in his natural habitat discussing the nature of the “nonfiction novel” with a reporter, sharing some of his research materials, and even reading from the book. Listening to him fawn over a photo of Dick Perry, it’s easy to see why some people questioned just how close the author got to his subject. It’s certainly not helped by his own defenses of his compassion for the “lonely” inmate.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s [review] fans will also appreciate a scene where Capote walks past the store with no less than Alvin Dewey and jokes and shares anecdotes about his relationship with the famous brand.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review. 

DON'T LOOK BACK - #786

NOTE: A version of this review originally appeared in 2007 when Docurama released their boxed set; the screengrabs also reflect that standard-definition DVD release.

D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, a profile of Bob Dylan on his 1965 British tour, is arguably the most influential rock 'n' roll documentary of all time, predating even the Maysles' Gimme Shelter and Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock. Thirty years later, Grant Gee pretty much orchestrated his Radiohead feature, Meeting People is Easy, note for note from Pennebaker. Ironically, given the movie's title, Don't Look Back is a film that deserves to be revisited every couple of years. My first viewing was part of a theatrical revival in the mid-1990s, before I was even a Dylan fan (the movie kind of made me one). And while the doc has been on DVD since 1999, and got an overhaul and expansion with 2007's 65 Tour Deluxe Edition, this high-definition upgrade brings Don't Look Back further into the modern age.

Make no mistake, Bob Dylan in 1965 was one cool cat. The smartest thing Pennebaker did was to stay out of Bob's business and just hang around. The performer allowed Pennebaker's camera unbelievable access. The cramped shots taken from within the entourage, tracking Dylan from press conferences to backstage waiting rooms and through taxi rides up to the hotel, bring the viewer incredibly close to the subject. Pennebaker isn't just a fly on the wall, he's landed in the ointment, and he captures the bare reality of touring life. There is the whirlwind of fan activity, the backroom negotiations, and more glad-handing than any one person should be expected to take. Hence, the onset of ennui that compels Dylan to go into some mesmerizing tirades, tearing into and tearing down journalists who he sees as beneath him. His behavior is arrogant and mean, but yet you can't blame him and you even sort of like him for it.

Other great moments come when participants have let their guard down, such as Joan Baez ribbing Bob by gently parodying his lyrics or when Pennebaker captures the expression of hurt on Alan Price's face when he tries to tell everyone it's no big deal that he was jettisoned from the Animals. Then, of course, there is the running Donovan joke, giving Pennebaker an unexpected throughline.

And there is also the music. We don't get a lot of complete performances in Don't Look Back, usually just snippets, often of the same song, underlining the tedium of the endless string of performances. Yet, Pennebaker is smart, and he knows that when it's all said and done, it's the music that counts, and no portrait of the singer would be complete without it. So, he lets the movie climax with the last big night, before delivering a coda that is so perfect, you can't believe he doesn't drop the camera then and there and kiss Dylan and manager Albert Grossman for delivering it to him. It lets all the air out of the rest of the movie, reminding us that most of what has happened is just palaver, and that Dylan's insistence that he is just a guy like anyone else is more true than the preceding ninety minutes suggested.

2007's companion film, Bob Dylan 65 Revisited is an unsurprising byproduct of the DVD era, a service to the hunger for newer better more extras. Pennebaker went back into his archives and put together a new compilation of footage that lasts a little over an hour. Revisited is pretty much more of the same, but without the rancor. The emphasis is on performances, as there are quite a few included, and Dylan's interactions with his fans. This collection of outtakes shows him as far more generous with his audience than one might have gathered from Don't Look Back. There is also a brief appearance by Nico, whose luminous presence even calms the notoriously grouchy Grossman.

As a bookend, Pennebaker includes another take of the film's iconic opening: Dylan running through a set of cue cards with pieces of the lyrics from his song "Subterranean Homesick Blues." The well-known version has Bob in an industrial area with Allen Ginsberg hanging around in the background; this second version has him on a rooftop with tour manager Bob Neuwirth and another record producer Tom Wilson. The wind is blowing, and it looks cold, and it has a certain metaphorical resonance as a capper to Don't Look Back and all of its trappings. Returning to such a popular and significant film could have been a dangerous prospect, looking either like a cursory cash-in or shrinking from the glare of its more famous precursor. Pennebaker beats the odds with Bob Dylan 65 Revisited, employing a slightly different strategy and letting the footage stand on its own. It's a welcome exercise in nostalgia.

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 07/09

IN THEATRES...

* Departures, the Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Language movie this year is good, but not great.

* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Pirnce, an uneven bridge between films 5 and 7. Spirited direction can't save the slow-moving icky bits. Kissing is gross!

* The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow's down and dirty drama about members of the bomb squad in the Iraq War. No politics, just soldiers doing a job. Prepare to spend two hours fully clenched.

* Moon, Duncan Jones sends Sam Rockwell to our orbiting satellite, and oh, what he finds there!

* Tetro, the new Francis Ford Coppola effort is written and directed by the maestro. Gorgeous to look at, but overambitious and frustratingly empty.

* Whatever Works confirms that Larry David and Woody Allen belong together. A light comedy from a master of light comedies.

ON DVD...

* The 10th Victim, a 1960s Italian mod sci-fi grandpappy to Running Man and reality TV. With Marcello Mastroianni reading comic books and Ursula Andress watching him.

* The Diary of Anne Frank: 50th Anniversary Edition proves that just because something is a classic, doesn't mean it's great.

* Grey Gardens (2009), the dramatic adaptation of the 1970s documentary is pretty good and definitely better than expected. Starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, both turning in exceptional performances.

* Mad Men: Season 2, in which the much-hyped show finally rises to its reputation. Brilliant.