Review of Gimme Shelter (2013) by Joe H — 13 Dec 2009

Usually Rock documentaries are pretty hard to stomach; often friends or lifelong fans are behind the camera, so we are left with far too much footage of the band or lengthy discussions of the drive behind the songs etc.

Though 'Gimme Shelter' does have plenty of this, and the Mayles brothers obviously admire the Rolling Stones, with plenty of concert footage to prove it, due to fate, chance or foresight on behalf of the film-makers this ends up being so much more than your standard rockumentary.

The infamous Altamont concert serves as a dramatic center point for the film, and Charlotte Zwerin and the other editors have skillfully applied feature techniques in its cutting, beginning in the editing room, with the Stones receiving the facts and reviewing the footage around what happened during their show. The film then cuts back and forth between the events leading to that point and the band performing.

If I was more of a fan of the Stones' music then I would probably have taken more from their concerts; Mick Jagger is a particularly energetic performer and injects real life onto the stage. But as I am not such a fan, I felt they slowed the film down; I preferred moments, such as those in the hotel and recording studio when the band listened back to their own music.

However The Rolling Stones' are not the reason to watch 'Gimme Shelter'. The disastrous concert conclusion is. Through the film we feel it waiting to explode like a ticking time bomb, and when it does it is amazing how much of the violence and confusion the camera has captured. The Altamore concert serves as the perfect metaphor for the end of a decade; the swinging sixties idealism is cruelly torn down, and the hippy counterculture is portrayed with drug fueled hedonism, completely incapable of dealing with the Hells Angels. The Stones themselves are also subject to severe criticism by the film makers, with the excellent moments of realisation in the edit, and an underwhelming ill-informed stage reaction showing their complete mortality. 'Gimme Shelter' completely removes its subjects from their pedestal.

A powerful observation as much as a film, 'Gimme Shelter' is a captivating slice of history.