Roaden Polynice
Superstar
Gimme Shelter from 1970
I thought that this was going to be a straightforward concert film. I've read that it's the best rock and roll film ever made. Nuh uh I said, Stop Making Sense is the greatest concert film of all time, Gimme Shelter and The Last Waltz be damned. Little did I know that Gimme Shelter is entirely different and much more complex than a mere concert, and Stop Making Sense is the straightforward concert film.
I read, that Mick Jagger understandably said that once he heard the news that Meredith Hunter was killed during The Rolling Stones’ set, his thoughts didn’t immediately begin to wander about the end of an era. It is an irresistible thought though, given the film produced out of the Stones’ final days on their North American tour. It is a film of reticence and simply filming things as they are. The band members rarely ever talk, and, instead has, mostly Mick, watching the film with the audience and reflecting back on the events that occurred. This serves as a sort of self-reflection, with his subtle reactions to what he’s watching, that ends up saying more than any extended interviews could have revealed.
It is a genuinely harrowing concert experience though. One marked by brutality, drugs, audience members dancing in the most irritating fashion they possibly could, floppy t*ts, long hair, white liberals, inexplicably babies, pimps, gang members, questionable wardrobe decisions, curtailed grooming regiments and dogs. In short every stereotype of the 60’s that one could, in one paragraph on any given night, think of.
With the film providing these images, the indelible theme of the finality of a mentality or a way of life incessantly pops up. This is one work about the end of the 60s that I have been thinking about (the others: Withnail and I and Mad Men). There was something special and simple about that time that simultaneously is infinitely difficult to articulate. Mad Men does to an extent, but the show is so layered and focuses on several things at once that the theme often gets drowned out. Withnail and I finds the titular characters in the final days of 1969 plunged in a haze of drugs and booze with Danny the drug dealer musing on the end of the 60’s labeling London as a country coming down from its trip. Danny, I think, out of these three works has the best commentary on the end of the decade. “If you're hanging onto a rising balloon, you're presented with a difficult decision - let go before it's too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.” Indeed. It’s the end of the party, the confetti is being swept, the streamers are thrown out, trim your hair, and get out before you can because life is changing rapidly. I’m assuming that it was a striking wake up call for the world at the time. A large-scale and collective growing up and coming to their senses. And the final scenes of Gimme Shelter showing the morning after the concert with people packing up and leaving, and Mick shutting off the film machine (I was born in 1989, fukk off) is a fitting image to round out a fascinating decade in history.
I thought that this was going to be a straightforward concert film. I've read that it's the best rock and roll film ever made. Nuh uh I said, Stop Making Sense is the greatest concert film of all time, Gimme Shelter and The Last Waltz be damned. Little did I know that Gimme Shelter is entirely different and much more complex than a mere concert, and Stop Making Sense is the straightforward concert film.
I read, that Mick Jagger understandably said that once he heard the news that Meredith Hunter was killed during The Rolling Stones’ set, his thoughts didn’t immediately begin to wander about the end of an era. It is an irresistible thought though, given the film produced out of the Stones’ final days on their North American tour. It is a film of reticence and simply filming things as they are. The band members rarely ever talk, and, instead has, mostly Mick, watching the film with the audience and reflecting back on the events that occurred. This serves as a sort of self-reflection, with his subtle reactions to what he’s watching, that ends up saying more than any extended interviews could have revealed.
It is a genuinely harrowing concert experience though. One marked by brutality, drugs, audience members dancing in the most irritating fashion they possibly could, floppy t*ts, long hair, white liberals, inexplicably babies, pimps, gang members, questionable wardrobe decisions, curtailed grooming regiments and dogs. In short every stereotype of the 60’s that one could, in one paragraph on any given night, think of.
With the film providing these images, the indelible theme of the finality of a mentality or a way of life incessantly pops up. This is one work about the end of the 60s that I have been thinking about (the others: Withnail and I and Mad Men). There was something special and simple about that time that simultaneously is infinitely difficult to articulate. Mad Men does to an extent, but the show is so layered and focuses on several things at once that the theme often gets drowned out. Withnail and I finds the titular characters in the final days of 1969 plunged in a haze of drugs and booze with Danny the drug dealer musing on the end of the 60’s labeling London as a country coming down from its trip. Danny, I think, out of these three works has the best commentary on the end of the decade. “If you're hanging onto a rising balloon, you're presented with a difficult decision - let go before it's too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.” Indeed. It’s the end of the party, the confetti is being swept, the streamers are thrown out, trim your hair, and get out before you can because life is changing rapidly. I’m assuming that it was a striking wake up call for the world at the time. A large-scale and collective growing up and coming to their senses. And the final scenes of Gimme Shelter showing the morning after the concert with people packing up and leaving, and Mick shutting off the film machine (I was born in 1989, fukk off) is a fitting image to round out a fascinating decade in history.
