Rolling Stones: Still Gathering No Moss

We got some nice feedback from our recent package of stories about the new Rolling Stones documentary, “Shine a Light,” and its creator, the great Martin Scorsese. It’s refreshing in today’s throwaway world to know that some grizzled veterans like the Stones and Marty are still doing their thing and getting their just due for it.
For those of you who, like us, dig the Stones, surely you’re aware that their long and storied career has been well documented on film. If you didn’t know that, well then, let us enlighten you.
Taking nothing away from Scorsese and “Shine a Light,” our favorite Stones doc is “Gimme Shelter,” directed by the brother tandem of Albert and David Maysles. The film is a time capsule that documents the end of an era, literally and figuratively.
“Gimme Shelter” trails Mick, Keef and the boys on their 1969 U.S. tour. In December of that year, the Stones gave a free concert at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, and more than 300,000 fans showed up. In one of the all-time great “what-were-they-thinking” moments in rock and roll, the show’s organizers hired the Hell’s Angels to provide security. That resulted in the murder of a fan that was captured on film by the Maysles.
The horrifying act put a grim capper on the idealism of the sixties.
The good folks at Criterion have put out an excellent edition of “Gimme Shelter” (I know, it’s in my collection), so check it out.
Another Stones film in my collection is the “Rock and Roll Circus,” which isn’t notable so much for the Stones’ performances as it is for their special guests, especially the thrown-together super group Dirty Mac (John Lennon, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell) playing “Yer Blues” and the Who, with an incendiary reading of “A Quick One While He’s Away.”
Two more Stones films to check out, if you can: Well, I can’t print the first word of the title of the first one, this being a family website and all. The second word is “Blues.” Anyone who knows their way around Google or YouTube can figure out the rest.
The film has never been released, and in fact is only shown when director Robert Frank, who’s now in his 80s, can be present at the screening. The doc follows the Stones on yet another tour, this one in 1972, and shows the accompanying sex, drugs and rock and roll in detail too rich to allow the Stones to give it a proper release, even though they’d commissioned it.
Not quite as obscure (it’s on DVD) is “Sympathy for the Devil,” shot by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. The film is compelling if only for its fly-on-the-studio wall look at the Stones taking the song “Sympathy For the Devil,” from a loose outline to the classic it became.

By Chris Dortch II

Festival Express

I had the pleasure of being on the jury for the Nashville Film Festival this week and though I was tapped to judge the short narrative category I still had a chance to catch a few films here and there and meet some very interesting filmmakers whose work I greatly admire.  Among them “Hoop Dreams” filmmaker Steve James, who was in attendance with his latest doc “At The Death House Door” James has never made anything resembling a bad film and the amount of time he spends capturing his subjects and the daunting amount of footage he shoots during the filmmaking process has long impressed me. Also, in attendance was Ondi Timoner who logged no less than seven years in the making of her film “Dig” and if you’ve seen that film and weren’t at least moderately entertained than you’re seriously missing out on one of the more exhilarating rock documentaries the medium has to offer.  Throw a Damon Packard film into the mix (it’s worth googling him if you don’t know the name) and you’ve got a couple of thumbs up and all smiles from me. Another good year for movies in Doc’s home town of Nashville.

By Chris Dortch II

Another Swish for ‘Hoop Dreams’ Team

Watched “At the Death House Door” Tuesday at the Nashville Film Festival. It’s a documentary about about executions in the state of Texas … Huntsville in particular.

There a man named Reverend Carroll Pickett ministered to an inmate on Death Row all day before he or she was executed that night. It took its toll on the Pickett, who after overseeing the execution of 95 people, finally gave up the job.

Now he is working to ban executions in Texas. And that’s really the film’s point. Executions don’t do anyone any good. Directors Steve James and Peter Gilbert, the same team that made “Hoop Dreams,” probably the most acclaimed documentary to date, attended the screening of the film and answered questions afterward.

James and Gilbert said they decided to make “At the Death House Door” after being contacted by two reporters from The Chicago Tribune, who thought the botched investigation that led to the execution of an innocent man, Carlos de Luna, would make a good documentary. The filmmakers were intrigued by the case, but they didn’t agree to the project until the reporters told them about a fascinating preacher named Pickett, who became the focus of their film.

Pickett, a solitary, hard-working man, sat down and recorded his thoughts on cassette after each execution. It was a form of therapy for him. Snippets of those recordings are used in the “At the Death House Door.” They are drawn from judiciously, mainly to enrich the story lines of this thorough and fine documentary.

I asked James and Gilbert whether Pickett, being a conservative from Texas, resisted becoming the subject of a documentary. They said he was a willing participant because had been treated fairly by the Chicago Tribune reporters, and because he viewed the whole process as a therapeutic one.

“(But) I think at one point he said we were on a 30-day trial period,” Gilbert recalled.

Quite an organized man, Pickett had done some checking into backgrounds of the filmmakers, too. When the three first met, Pickett had in hand a file full of information about “Hoop Dreams” and some of James and Gilbert’s other work.

For more information about “At the Death House Door” visit their production company’s Web site, Kartemquin Films, at www.kartemquin.com.

By Gregory Crofton

Film Festivals Are Neat

Well it’s hard to believe it’s been a year already, but sure enough it’s time once again for our hometown Nashville Film Festival. True to form, artistic director of the festival Brian Gordon has packed the roster with a number of killer non-fiction films. In attendance at this year’s fest will be doc makers Steve James, whose “Hoop Dreams” stands as one of the recent undisputed classics of the doc medium. And on a personal note I’m, pretty excited to have the opportunity to catch a screening of “Dig” filmmaker Ondi Timoner’s new film “Join Us” with Ondi in attendance for a post film Q&A session. Throw in a new doc by Werner Herzog and a closing night doc on Phil Spector go-to guys “The Wrecking Crew,” and I think it’s safe to go ahead and call ’08 a pretty successful year. And hey, on an even nerdier and more personal note, I’m chomping at the bit to get a look at “Searchers 2.0,” which reunites filmmaker Alex Cox with a number of the staples of his “Repo Man” cast. That and a screening of the whimsically titled “Trailer Park of Terror” should keep me in smiles at least until next year’s fest. So there you have it folks, should you happen to be a resident of the city we at DOC proudly call home, maybe we’ll see you at the movies.

By Chris Dortch II

Huston We Have a Problem

Fun week on the DOC website this week. I had the opportunity to dig into the wonderful worlds of three different films that I can’t encourage you to check out enough. From the iconic classic “Jazz on a Summer’s Day,” to the hard-edged wartime truths of “John Huston’s War Stories” to the incredible human journeys that mark the films of Adrian and Roko Belic, I’m hopeful our readers will be as fired up to seek out these films as I was to have an opportunity to write about them. In the case of Midge Mackenzie’s film “John Huston’s War Stories,” you won’t have to look far, as the film will actually be premiering here on DOC a little later in the month. I hope that if you consider yourself a movie buff and all you know of John Huston is that he directed the “Maltese Falcon” and fathered Angelica, that you’ll emerge on the other side with a deepened perspective of one of our all-time greatest filmmakers. I look forward to hearing any thoughts or comments you might have and hope you’ll drop us a line at viewers@documentarychannel.com.

By Chris Dortch II

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