Review of Gimme Shelter (2013) by Shane S — 12 Jan 2011

One of the darkest, if not the darkest, cinà (C)ma và (C)rità (C) films ever created, the Maysles brothers' magnum opus showing us the casualties, chaos, paranoia, and unadulterated violence that was the end of the 1960s centers around the Rolling Stones and them trying to hold a free concert at the last minute. While it is mostly their fault for trying to take care of something in the nick of time (even hiring those wonderful Hell's Angels to do security), I happen to wag my finger at the concert goers for allowing themselves to apply the American transgression of gluttony and excess to the idea of psychedelic drugs.

As with a lot of cinà (C)ma và (C)rità (C), this attempts to piece together a plot out of something so "random". For the time (and still to this day), it works quite fine. Even if you know what happened on that bright December day at Altamont, it's still intriguing to see the Stones attempt to juggle the recording of both "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out" and "Sticky Fingers" in the US while their manager takes care of the free concert. As many people have voiced about on the Flixster page, the Rolling Stones aren't that amazing as a live band. However, their live renditions of classic hits such as "Gimme Shelter" and "Jumping Jack Flash" still made me nod my head to the beat - for a mediocre live band, they seem to have all the skills necessary to have such a performance in the first place.

However, my interpretation of this documentary is not just a document of the Rolling Stones' US tour, but mainly due to the Altamont footage (Jefferson Airplane, Flying Burrito Brothers, the people roaming around, the Grateful Dead fleeing the scene after Marty Balin was beaten up), it has become a testament to why the American dream has yet again corrupted something so potentially enlightening. As Hunter S. Thompson and Thomas Pynchon have stated over and over, psychedelic drugs did not help alleviate the problems of the 1960s, but what most people tend to forget was that they were talking about the overconsumption of drugs that led to many worst-case scenarios such as the Manson Family murders and Altamont. Why Hunter Thompson took an entire suitcase of drugs was not because he needed to share with his lawyer - he needed to get into the minds of the people who didn't know how to conserve.

And the fact that people were developing harder drugs at this time contributed to the problem. Since these harder drugs were more addictive, they could not quit it cold turkey as they could with psychedelics and marijuana. Combined with their overconsumption, these people were out of control - and that's why I blame them for the death of Meredith Hunter. They allowed themselves to get this way. Mick Jagger and the Hell's Angels knew it. They were trying to protect themselves.

Technically rated PG (it got re-rated recently?), this would be an R by today's standards (since we're so spineless over non-sexual male and female nudity, some swears, Meredith Hunter getting stabbed, the chaos of Altamont, all that drug use), but since this and "Woodstock" are two important documents on a period of America we just don't see anymore because of lack of quality control in modern-day record labels (it's all supply and demand) and especially because of lack of devotion (I don't see Justin Bieber saying "We're the volunteers of America"), I say it would be fair to rate these films PG-13 in order to allow a broader range of audiences and not just those 17 and older or those willing to circumnavigate the confines of the rating system. Like this and "Easy Rider", they show a vision of America that we wanted to reach, but sadly due to all the TV networks, economics, evangelical Christian retaliation, and a strange backlash against roots rock and experimental forms of music, it's no longer there.

Come on, Joan Graves! Even my church watches "Easy Rider" and I'm sure you know what it has. You've probably seen it a hundred times. People somehow get wiser as we move on further.