Gimme Shelter

The Maysles brothers deliver an eloquent document on a countercultural turning point, the free concert turned violent debacle at Altamont in 1969. At that time the Rolling Stones might legitimately have been “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World,” and the first half of the film gives them ample opportunity to stake their claim. Even when Tina Turner steals the show by performing an explicit set act on stage -- um, I mean by singing a song. My gawd, Mick was young back then, as were we all. It’s painful to watch all those communal, lion-lie-down-with-the-lamb fantasies evaporate in dark eruptions of id from the Hell’s Angels (and inanity from all the rest), while supposedly providing security but mainly exciting violence, as the band stands by helplessly. How much “sympathy for the devil” now, hunh, Mick, you “streetfighting man” from the London School of Economics? Albert Maysles’ searching camera follows the Stones into the recording studio and also into the editing room, to run over and over the footage of mayhem and murder. An impressively intimate collective portrait emerges. (1970, dvd, r.) *7+*