My mom's brother, my Uncle Stuart, drowned as a teen a few years before I was born. Growing up, I heard often that I was a lot like him in personality and in interests. A few years ago, my grandfather cleared out a crate remaining at his house containing my uncle's record library. I didn't get the records; I'm too low on the totem pole for that. But I did go through and write down a list of every album he left behind and it's been a goal of mine to listen to all of those albums to see what I might learn about him through his taste in music.

The two bands most heavily represented in his library were The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I've heard he loved them both, but favored the Stones. I grew up without a lot of exposure to the Stones. Mom listened to the oldies station, but in my youth they focused on the music of the 50s and early 60s. I was introduced to "Paint It, Black" in the 80s because it was used for the opening credits of the TV show, Tour of Duty. My dad, a Vietnam veteran, watched it. By then I wasn't really going for the biweekly visitations very often so even that exposure was minimal.

That's pretty much the context in which I came to this documentary, which I checked out on Criterion DVD from the Oldham County Public Library this afternoon. Directors David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwern kept the narrative focused and engaging. A lot of music docs kind of meander, often unsure how to balance on-stage performance footage with behind-the-stage moments of candor. Gimme Shelter is not harangued by those uncertainties. From start to finish, this doc is concerned exclusively with the frenzy that erupted at the free show at the Altamont Speedway that culminated in the stabbing death of a concert-goer at the hands of a Hells Angel.

The editing is taut, the footage candid and Gimme Shelter never stumbles. It's one of those perfect zeitgeist works. Even without the unfortunate notoriety of the killing, the kind of access afforded the filmmakers ensured that this was going to be a fascinating look at not just a popular rock band on a hot tour, but a microcosm of the entire counterculture movement. The montage of the audience waiting for the show to begin suggests that the full footage could easily constitute an intriguing film all its own. (A woman gave birth, for crying out loud!)

I came away from Gimme Shelter with a much greater understanding of the infamous concert; prior to this, I was only peripherally aware of it. Moreover, though, I found myself wondering what my uncle would have had to say about it as someone who surely would have wanted to be in attendance himself. It's not at all the kind of scene where I ever pictured him. In my mind, he's always holed up in his bedroom either illustrating or reading something. The idea of him at an event like the Altamont concert is almost laughable...except that then I think of some of the places I've been and the things I've done and I'm reminded in a new way that he and I really are/were/would have been kindred spirits.

The Criterion Collection DVD

The film is compelling by itself, but the bonus content on the Criterion Collection DVD is top notch.

Audio Commentary
[I'll play the commentary later; as I write this, the Cincinnati Reds have just begun play for the night. As this is the only bonus feature remaining, I'll save it for later.]

1969 KSAN Radio Broadcast
Four hours of radio time on KSAN were dedicated to covering the concert, originally conceived as a tie-in to the good times. When things went south, however, the call-ins became a treasure trove of primary source recordings from firsthand witnesses and key figures from critic John Burkes to photographer Jim Marshall, and two members of the Hell's Angels. Particularly fascinating is the call from Sonny Barger, a member of the Oakland Hell's Angels, a firsthand witness and participant in some of the day's escalating skirmishes. That call is not found on the Blu-ray Disc release of the film. This is easily among the compelling bonus features in the entire Criterion library.

Outtakes (22:02)
The highlight here is a shot of Mick Jagger caught up in the energy during a recording/mixing session of "Little Queenie," absentmindedly dancing along to the music.

Images from Altamont
I'm not a big fan of stills galleries on DVDs, and I confess that while Bill Owens and Beth Sunflower snapped some great photos, I still found myself unable to really connect with their work on my TV screen the way I could in a book.

Maysles Films Trailers
The original trailers for Gimme Shelter didn't do much for me, though the re-release trailer was a bit more attention-getting. Salesman, however, really piqued my curiosity and I've added it to my ever-growing To See list. Grey Gardens seems...weird.

Filmographies
Another DVD feature I never really cared for: text pages of filmographies. Not much to say about these lists of the works of both the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin. Today, I'd just hit IMDb.

Restoration Demonstration
It isn't particularly technical, but this brief demo does a great job showcasing the before & after work of film restoration. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't make a DVD today because we've seen similar contrasts in commercials for DVD releases and theatrical re-issues often enough that Joe Sixpack gets it now: the original masters have faded and the new prints look gorgeous. Still, it's a truly impressive demo to behold and well worth the few minutes.

"The Rolling Stones, Altamont and GIMME SHELTER"
Unfortunately for me, this 44-page booklet was not available to me with the DVD I checked out from the library. However, Criterion kindly archives the essays on their website.

Gimme Shelter entered my Flickchart at #251/1414

I came back to this DVD early this morning for its commentary track, featuring directors Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, and collaborator Stanley Goldstein. Documentary commentaries are rare, and for good reason: anything the documentarian wishes to say ought to be in the film. The passage of time, however, invites Maysles, Zwerin and Goldstein to try to place the film in its proper context - whether as a document of the concert, of the social zeitgeist captured on film, or even the place of Gimme Shelter in the annals of documentary films.

The appeal, then, is not to glean more about the content of the film - explored in depth throughout the Criterion DVD's generous other bonus content - but in this perspective of those who made it, making sense of just what they made. Zwerin, we learn, was the one who proposed editing the film around the notorious killing. Cutting back and forth from the road to the Altamont concert to the aftermath imbues the film partly with its structure, but also with its soul. Zwerin notes that had they simply put it together as a series of chronological events, when it was over, audiences would wonder just what they'd seen. Structuring it this way, however, gives the film its dark focus. We know from the outset that we're going to bear witness to the calamity.

As commentary tracks go, this is one of the stronger ones I've heard. There aren't many lulls or ramblings. Some information is extraneous because I'd already heard about it elsewhere in the bonus content, and not every tidbit of insight is as intriguing as the rest, but on the whole I was kept engaged. It certainly added to my understanding and appreciation of the film, and that's the objective of every commentary track.

Essays
The DVD I checked out from the Oldham County Public Library is missing the 44 page booklet, but fortunately The Criterion Collection website archives the essays. Like the film and other bonus content, it runs the gamut from firsthand witness testimonials to retrospective criticism of the events and the film itself. One of my favorite passages is from Stanley Booth's essay, "Gimme Shelter: The True Adventures of Altamont" -

The violence at Altamont, being completely unexpected, came afterward to seem inevitable. The assassinations of the sixties had aged us—we who were, as the seventies dawned, still under thirty—but they had been random, isolated events that didn’t involve the rock-and-roll generation. Altamont was nothing we could shrug off, and somehow we all lacked the will to rise above it.

The other essays are well worth reading, but I think Booth's was the strongest. I was also quite partial to Georgia Bergman's "Gimme Shelter: Snapshots from the Road".