Gimme Shelter (1970)

Must See Movie...

How sad is this?

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

is the song that the Rolling Stones are performing when the stabbing of Meredith Hunter takes place and is caught on camera. The film is basically about the Altamont Festival and the documentary style puts you right there at the festival. We watch the tension building – the fights between the Hells Angels and the crowd and a crazy scene when Jefferson Airplane have their spot stopped when the Angels attack the lead singer Marty Balin and then rush the stage and take control of the microphone! And all of this is happens during the daytime before the now well-known tragedy that was to follow. This Jefferson Airplane incident doesn't seem to be mentioned these days but it's pretty big news! We watch as fellow lead singer Grace Slick looks on helplessly. Tensions just continue to mount until the Stones take the stage and start performing when it gets dark and the documentary succeeds in relaying that atmosphere. By this time, you can feel that something bad is going to happen as there is constant trouble and interruptions to the gig. It's obviously a very threatening and scary concert to be at and we have to be grateful to the documentary-makers for capturing it on film.I'm not sure why "Sympathy for the Devil" is sometimes mentioned as the song during which Hunter is stabbed. The Stones do have to stop this song and appeal for calm during this song before starting again after fighting between the crowd and the Angels. Was this when Hunter was first attacked and stabbed before he returned? Anybody know? The Angels are fascinating to watch as are the crowd who dig the music as are the organizers of the event. As for the Stones, where's Bill Wyman? You get more of Mick Taylor than you do of Bill. Perhaps he was just deemed too boring and edited completely out. I remember watching a documentary in which some guy who was dealing with the Stones was reprimanded by Jagger for not asking Mick about band issues. The quote from Jagger went something like "Charlie's the quiet, shy one, Keith is off his head, Ronnie does what I say and Bill is boring. If you want to ask anything about the band, you come to me". Perhaps control-freak Jagger just edited Wyman out.

October 1969 marked a month of tragedy for rock and roll. The Rolling Stones were on their US tour when they stopped to play a free concert at the Altamont Speedway in San Francisco. It was a concert event that was supposed to be the Woodstock of the West, but it ended up being just the opposite. Hell's Angels were hired for security and, as the chaos of the show ascended, the Angels became more and more violent towards the crowd until the night ended in the stabbing and murdering of at least one of the concert goers. Gimme Shelter is the documentary which focuses on this tragic occurrence in brutal detail. The film mixes concert footage of the Rolling Stones, footage of the night at Altamont, as well as the band watching and reflecting on that terrible night. It's an extraordinary and harrowing film which will shake you to your core as you watch the raw, unedited footage taken at Altamont and the unending brutality which seems so unnecessary and so easily preventable. It's a remarkably disturbing experience to watch Gimme Shelter.I honestly believe it was a stroke of genius to make this film so simple. There was no need to tamper with the Altamont footage or add anything extraneous to it. Gimme Shelter is perfect in the way it just shows us all of the actual footage from the concert, as well as leading up to the concert. There's no narration, no extra pictures or clips. It is just the footage put together in a way that details that terrible night in the straightest way possible. There could not be a more thorough account of the events at Altamont. This is the finest way to view something this out of the ordinary. The footage we watch in Gimme Shelter is stunning and unforgettable. It's safe to assume that 99% of the audience at that show was on acid, and the results are amazing to watch. There is an incredible amount of footage of people having wild acid trips, doing all sorts of bizarre things. It is amusing to watch at first, but quickly becomes deadly when Hell's Angels are introduced into the equation. Thus we have a scenario that is nerve racking to witness unfold and we are then filled with immense anxiety and dread as the situation grows into the tragedy it morphed into by the end of the night.Of course, what makes Gimme Shelter more than just a simple reflection on the tragedy at Altamont Speedway is the footage of the Rolling Stones watching the Altamont footage and reflecting on it all. The shock and awe is very obvious in their reactions and hearing what they have to say about it is fascinating. They don't say much about it because of all the shock, but they say enough and they display enough body language to convey their loss for words at this event and how horrified they are that something like this had to happen under their watch. This is possibly the saddest aspect of the entire situation. The fact that someone was murdered is horrific enough, but the fact that it had to happen in the name of rock and roll is deafeningly sad. It is painful to watch the messages of peace and love flourish in that concert audience, only to be violently contrasted by the over reactions of Hell's Angels. It's a sickening occurrence that seems to evoke more innate sadness than anger. It's terrible to watch but it makes Gimme Shelter one of the most powerful and provocative documentaries you will ever see. This film is an incredible experience that you will not soon forget.

The great thing about "Gimme Shelter" is the way this documentary works as a dramatical film with acts, thrills, and when you watch how things were at the Altamont Festival you see how difficult things were that it looks like a Hollywood film where everything happens because it was written this way in order to be appealing to audiences. The Mayles Brothers film has no script whatsoever but some of the situations presented in it seems to coming out of a intriguing suspense. The now infamous concert seems to fated from the moment where managers wanted a place to do the show until the deaths of four people during the whole thing, being the murder of Meredith Hunter as the worst presented (and the only displayed and mentioned in the film, during the Rolling Stones performance of "Under My Thumb"). Reasons for being a failure are countless: Security issues concerning that the police almost wasn't present and the Hell's Angels were the ones contracted to do the job, pushing people around and hitting Jefferson' Airplane's member Marty Balin on the face (act denounced by the band members while performing which almost caused a big clash between band and the motorcycle members); the place where the concert was made with a enormous number of people (this is the drama I was talking about, since this place was the third selected for such event, sounds like a play with three acts of tension, the third place where everything happened, things like that). Every time you can sense that something's gonna happen and it will be something bad. Everything was a mess, but you can see some happiness, some smiles in crowd, it wasn't so bad but it could have been a better event to be remembered as a nice thing.Future viewers pay attention to Rolling Stones performance in the final minutes of the film where the most gripping and shocking part appears. The band couldn't play a song without being interrupted by the crowd and then the unfortunate event of the murder of a man by the Hell's Angels who attacked the man because he had a gun. Question to be made by us viewers is: why someone carried a gun in a show and a improvised security member carried a knife with him? And despite all the planning we see Mel Belli and managers doing throughout the documentary one must wonder what happened there."Gimme Shelter" captures the 1970's hippie movement, the rock n'roll as a powerful art in that social scenery, and of course the music is great. Brilliantly edited and directed it is a bold and interesting documentary. It gets sad towards the ending (especially Mick Jagger's face viewing in details the murder that happened in front of them but in the moment they couldn't saw a thing. Thanks to one of the film editors he could see the awful truth). Rock N'Roll fans or not, see it right now! 10/10

I haven't seen this in a few years, I'd like to see it again, so excuse my vagueness.But all I remember of this film is that it was mesmerizing to watch.Maybe some of the other comments here are right, that the film making was lacking, but as for the images; well they speak for themselves. The first 10-15 minutes, on the road (I think) document the groupie/hippie scene way better than any movie since.The way the camera lingers, it felt like a Wiessman film. I just can't get enough of not being to told what to think; you watch a group of people in the frame for minutes on end, and you can make up your own mind. Or not.