Gimme Shelter

Year: 1970

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Maysles

Review

december 1969…litterally the end of the 60s. the rolling stones (along with a few others) held a free concert at altamont speedway in san francisco. for some unexplained reason they hired the hell’s angels as their security force. the maysles brothers and zwerin do a good job of constructing the film as a build up to the climax. at the very beginning of the film we see mick jagger responding to accounts of the near riot after it happened. then we jump back in time to concerts before the concert in SF. we know something bad happens, but we’re not sure what and we only see the band members’ reactions to it the next day. so the rest of the film acts as a contrast to what ends up happening in the last half hour or so; it also shows the behind the scenes politicking and logistics work that leads up to the hastily thrown together concert at altamont. the filmmakers edit the film well – jumping between the managers and the live shows in new york or elsewhere. we see how crowds act at other venues and get a feel for the rolling stones, both on and off the stage. as a piece of filmmaking it’s quite good. as a historical document it may be even better. it’s easy to make the film into something much more than it may be. the inability of the crowd and the hell’s angels to get along throughout the concert could be extrapolated as being symbolic of the failures of the hippie movement in general. upon reflection i think that that would be a bit of an overstatement, but while i was watching the film and just swishing the idea around in my head it did seem to hold some water. altamont was four months after woodstock…mlk and rfk were already dead and the “60s” as a movement was, by most accounts, dead before the 70s actually came around. it’s easy to see how one might site this as a failure of the hippie philosophy. jagger and grace slick both plead with the crowd, at several different times, to keep the peace and get along with each other. but as the night wears on the drugged up and excited crowd coupled with the lack of a respectable and proficient security force leads to at least one death and several fights. it’s not as chaotic as i have heard it described, but it’s definitely not a stable situation either.