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Monterey Pop

 
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Monterey Pop

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  • Director: D.A. Pennebaker
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstar
  • Genre: Music
  • Movie Type: Concerts
  • Themes: Musician's Life, Bohemian Life
  • Release Year: 1968
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 98 minutes

Plot

The first concert film of the rock & roll era, Monterey Pop is an invaluable record of some of the major musical figures of the late 1960s. The organizers of the Monterey International Pop Festival, held June 16-18, 1967, wisely chose to record the proceedings on film for commercial distribution. Even if some of the festival's big acts -- The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, and Buffalo Springfield -- didn't make the final cut for various reasons, the roster of performers who did reads like a who's who of the era: Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin), Simon & Garfunkel, and The Mamas and the Papas (that group's leader, John Phillips, was one of the festival's principal organizers). The festival's "international" tag is well-earned by one performer in the film: Ravi Shankar, whose final-day performance was one of the festival's highlights and closes the movie on an exuberant note. Though the festival seemed to be anticipating nearby San Francisco's Summer of Love, the film chooses to concentrate on the musical performers, with only brief intimations of the burgeoning counterculture. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Review

Any record of popular culture of the 1960s would be incomplete without at least a mention of Monterey Pop. Monterey Pop offers the rock version of two equally invaluable documentaries, Jazz on a Summer's Day and Festival, which respectively chronicled the jazz and folk festivals held every summer for many years in Newport, RI. Those films offered more coverage of their respective festivals' audience members, suggesting the almost tribal nature of outdoor music gatherings. Monterey Pop lets the music do the talking for a generation of increasingly disaffected young people. The festival provided coming-out parties for a number of influential performers: Jimi Hendrix, leaving audiences members slack-jawed after he sets fire to his guitar; Janis Joplin, having the same effect on fellow singer Cass Elliot; The Who, trying to one-up Hendrix by destroying a guitar and a drum kit; Otis Redding, an established star with the black community reaching out to what he calls "the love crowd" of white hippies; and Ravi Shankar, the Indian musician little-known to American audiences bringing down the house with a final-day display of furious virtuosity (Shankar almost left Monterey after seeing what Hendrix and The Who's Pete Townsend did to their instruments). Although Woodstock ultimately surpassed Monterey Pop for capturing a better sense of the entire experience of an outdoor music festival, Monterey's historical status is unassailable. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Cast

Peter Albin; The Animals; Big Brother & the Holding Company; Canned Heat; Country Joe & the Fish; Roger Daltrey; John Entwistle; Art Garfunkel; Jefferson Airplane; The Mamas & the Papas; Pete Townshend; The Who; Jimi Hendrix; Janis Joplin; Keith Moon; Otis Redding; Ravi Shankar; Paul Simon

Credit

D.A. Pennebaker - Conception, D.A. Pennebaker - Director, Nina Schulman - Editor, James Desmond - Camera Operator, Richard Leacock - Camera Operator, Albert Maysles - Camera Operator, Nicholas Proferes - Camera Operator, Barry Feinstein - Camera Operator, D.A. Pennebaker - Cinematographer, Lou Adler - Producer, John Phillips - Producer

Similar Movies

The Concert for Bangladesh; The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter; The Last Waltz; Stamping Ground; The T.A.M.I. Show; Woodstock; Beyond the Doors; The Big T.N.T. Show; The Concert for Kampuchea; Echoes of the 60s; Medicine Ball Caravan; That Was Rock; Wattstax; Free; The Same River Twice; Great Medicine Ball Caravan; Mamas & the Papas: Straight Shooters; Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival; Otis Redding: Ready, Steady, Go!; Bickershaw Festival; A Technicolor Dream
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Wikipedia: Monterey Pop
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Monterey Pop

Monterey Pop movie poster
Directed by D. A. Pennebaker
Produced by John Phillips
Lou Adler
Starring The Mamas & the Papas
Canned Heat
Simon & Garfunkel
Hugh Masekela
Jefferson Airplane
Big Brother and the Holding Company
The Animals
The Who
Country Joe and the Fish
Otis Redding
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Ravi Shankar
Editing by Nina Schulman
Distributed by Leacock Pennebaker
Release date(s) December 26, 1968
Running time 79 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Monterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. The painter Brice Marden has an "assistant camera" credit, and Bob Neuwirth, who figured prominently in Pennebaker's Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back, acted as stage manager. Titles for the film were by the illustrator Tomi Ungerer. Featured performers include Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Hugh Masekela, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, The Mamas & the Papas, The Who (who destroy their instruments at the end of "My Generation"), and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose name-sake set his guitar on fire during "Wild Thing".

Contents

Performers and songs

Songs featured in the film, in order of appearance:

  1. Big Brother & The Holding Company (Combination of the Two*)
  2. Scott McKenzie (San Francisco*)
  3. The Mamas & The Papas (Creeque Alley* & California Dreamin)
  4. Canned Heat (Rollin' & Tumblin')
  5. Simon & Garfunkel (The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy))
  6. Hugh Masekela (Bajabula Bonke (Healing Song))
  7. Jefferson Airplane(High Flyin' Bird & Today)
  8. Big Brother & The Holding Company (Ball & Chain)
  9. Eric Burdon & The Animals (Paint It Black)
  10. The Who (My Generation)
  11. Country Joe & The Fish (Section 43)
  12. Otis Redding (Shake & I've Been Loving You Too Long)
  13. The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Wild Thing)
  14. The Mamas & The Papas (Got a Feelin')
  15. Ravi Shankar (Raga Bhimpalasi).

* = Studio version, played over film footage of pre-concert activity.

The order of performances in the film was rearranged from the order of appearance at the festival. Additionally many artists who appeared at the festival were not included in the original cut of the film. (For details on the festival lineup see Monterey Pop Festival).

DVD

Cover of The Complete Monterey Pop Festival DVD box set

In 2002 Monterey Pop was re-released on DVD as part of a Criterion Collection box set, The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, that also includes Pennebaker's short films Jimi Plays Monterey (1986) and Shake! Otis at Monterey (1986), as well as two hours of outtake performances, including some by bands not seen in the original film.

Influence

D. A. Pennebaker

Jean-Luc Godard, the French New Wave director, was so taken by Jefferson Airplane's performance in Monterey Pop that later in 1968 he set out to make a never-finished film called One A.M. (for "One American Movie") in collaboration with Pennebaker and Leacock. Godard shot a sequence of the Airplane, (included on the 2004 "Fly Jefferson Airplane" DVD) , playing at high noon on a business day on the roof of a New York hotel across the street from the Leacock-Pennebaker offices, with the tower of Rockefeller Center in the background. Attracted by the extremely high volume of the music, the police arrived and put an end to the shooting. This incident inspired other bands, notably the Beatles in their Let It Be film, to mount their own rooftop performances.

In 1969, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld pitched an idea for a recording studio in Woodstock, New York to businessmen John P. Roberts and Joel Rosenman. In the documentary Woodstock: Now and Then, Rosenman states that what really caught his eye in the proposal was the suggestion that the studio would encourage occasional rock concerts in the town. Rosenman had watched Monterey Pop the day before meeting with Lang and Kornfeld and recalled thinking it one of the best films he had ever seen, and was excited about the notion of being part of something similar. Rosenman and Roberts agreed to bankroll Lang and Kornfeld in an effort that morphed into the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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