Monterey Pop [VHS]

Monterey Pop [VHS]
by D.A. Pennebaker

Monterey Pop [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Country Joe McDonald, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Pete Townshend, Ravi Shankar
Director: D.A. Pennebaker
Producer: John Phillips
Cinematographer: Albert Maysles
Cinematographer: Barry Feinstein
Cinematographer: D.A. Pennebaker
Cinematographer: Nick Doob
Cinematographer: Richard Leacock
Producer: Lou Adler
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, Compilation, NTSC
Running Time: 78 minutes
Release Date: 1997-06-17
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Rhino / Wea
Studio: Rhino / Wea

VHS Movie Reviews of Monterey Pop [VHS]

Movie Review: The Original Mind Blower
Summary: 5 Stars

Some of the commentors here seem to be saying that this film doesn't quite present an accurate picture of the unprecedented 3 day phenomenon that was the Monterey Pop Festival. Well, WHAT would present an accurate picture of that amazing event? I suppose, maybe, hearing someone who was ACTUALLY there tell us his or her story of those wild days. Someone like, I dunno... D.A. Pennebaker? Hey, right, he WAS there, and this film is HIS story (history). At only 78 or so minutes it's more so his impression, his simple reaction, in condensed user friendly form, like a good story is supposed to be.

It's a powerful moment in pop culture - something of an evolutionary turning point. Monterey Pop was very soon understood to be the coming-of-age party for the next generation of cultural leaders. As I watched it the first time some 25 years ago I remember feeling like I was witnessing a natural birth. The birth of a new social order that cherished and honored peace and love above all else. Like all births it wasn't all pretty. It can be messy and painful and even scary.

Pennebaker opens his story with the splendid Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company's up tempo "Combination of the Two" playing over pre-concert footage. The hippy dippy love and peace vibe was so thick and fun. Appropriately, Scott McKenzie is then heard over more concert prep footage singing "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)", which festival co-founder John Phillips wrote to promote the event. The first stage act we see are The Mamas and The Papas doing "California Dreaming" - a fine expression of the spirit of the day. Sensational rock acts including Canned Heat, Simon & Garfunkle, and Jefferson Airplane follow. Big Brother & The Holding Company really get things deep with Janis wailing a remarkable "Ball and Chain." The romance sours a bit as Eric Burden and The Animals perform a sinister "Paint It Black." It then gets very rough when the Who really beat up the crowd with what sounds like early Punk, their ultra loud hooligan posture in stark contrast to the relatively mild preceding sets - ominous signs of a possibly troubled pregnancy. Destroying their instruments at the end of their set in a fit of hyper adolescent rage seems to be a not-to-be-topped show-ender. This may be a stillbirth.

And it would have been if The Who hadn't been later followed by the yet not well known Jimi Hendrix who then assumes total control of The Delivery. The water's broken, The Baby is coming and Doctor Jimi is Chief Physician. But he's not your typical Md with an axe. He is transforming before our eyes, mutating, expanding into enormous dimensions and capacities into a monumental Shaman. A molten force from prehistorical depths erupting and reforming endlessly, now being entirely recreated. He writhes and coils as if caught in the throws of powerful contractions. An electric, sonic fetus has instantly developed on stage into a gargantuan, cosmic sound. His symphonic offspring, now fully formed, complete, gorgeous, pure like Apollo, the god of healing who taught man medicine. The god of light. The god of truth, who can not speak a lie. And then Jimi sets fire to his guitar - a ritual sacrifice, appeasing the greater gods that this brand new, better, infant world he has just ushered in might live and prosper.

Pretty heady stuff, aye? And the truly amazing, wonderful bit that still thrills me is that Ravi Shankar outdoes Jimi. Ravi had done it much earlier on that Sunday afternoon, but realizing the awesome achievement of Shankar's act, Pennebaker chooses to show us this astounding performance last. In what starts like a modest and polite display of a bygone technique, Ravi's raga soon has summoned the attention of everyone and directed it to the Here And Now. The rhythmic syncopation building upon itself, repeating and quickening, everyone's awareness now finely focused on the increasingly heated, emphatic call and response between Ravi's Sitar and Alla Rakha's Tabla. The pace and intensity increase and hold the entire population helplessly captive. It's a formidable, inexorable current that has grasped everyone's consciousness as the pace continues to build and grow. Each pass seems to be the limit but the next surpasses. The intensity increases with ferocious spasms of rhythm. We are not just witnessing but actually experiencing the conception of our new life. A great cosmic mind f*** with the potent seed of eternity being implanted into the open, pulsing, unsuspecting minds of all.

Tho they didn't know it yet, on that Sunday afternoon of the final scheduled day of the Monterey Pop Festival, a roundish, dark skinned, simple cotton cloth swaddled gnome had very thoroughly, graciously raped the collective mind of that naive bunch. And you can see it on the stunned, gaping faces of anonymous spectators and fellow performers alike. They just didn't have the words or ideas or emotions to grasp what was happening.

So it was in such a fertile, pregnant state that Janis, and Pete and Jimi took that evening's stage and completed the inevitable act that Ravi had so cunningly begun.

This is what I felt when I first watched that edited, incomplete personal tale that is "Monterey Pop." That deformed near-abortion is, to me, perfect. As perfect as any life can be.

Movie Review: CAUTION! Be Sure this is the Disc you want
Summary: 3 Stars

By the price it should be obvious that this is a single DVD edition of the Monterey Pop Festival at $27.99, and not the 3 disc $70.00 edition as reviewed previously. Nonetheless, it is well worth the price for a 78 minute cross section of what happened in that "summer of love". If you want all 280 minutes of the festival, be sure you get that 3 DVD set. Its well worth it!

Movie Review: Three Days of Music and Love
Summary: 5 Stars

I have a confession to make. I did not know anything about the Monterey International Pop Festival nor about documentary made by the famous filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker until last Saturday when I turned on my TV and it was showing on MHD channel. Even more, I only caught the last 20 minutes of the film but what I saw and what I heard during the great finale simply mesmerized me. The last performance in the film belongs to Ravi Shankar, the legendary sitarist who along with Alla Rakha on tabla and Kamala at taboura plays 18 minutes long composition called "Raga Bhimpalasi." Along with The Who, Ravi Shankar was introduced to America at the Monterey festival. Eighteen minutes of Raga Bhimpalasi, the final scene of the Monterey Pop film, was an excerpt from Shankar's four-hour performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival his first public concert in front of a new generation of music fans.

What started as slow and exotic sensuality, built up into blissful frenzy duel between sitar and tabla. It is incredibly creative and intriguing how Pennebaker shot the Shankar's performance and made it as much a visual delight as it was a sound. For the first seven minutes, we only hear the sounds of music and see how the audience reacts on the unusual exciting Eastern chords and rhythms, we don't see the musicians. The director moves his camera from one young face in the audience to another, from different rows and different angles. Then, he slowly turns the camera toward the stage and moves it extremely close to Ravi and Alla, so close that we are able to see their faces and the hands, and you would think that Shankar has not two but six hands, just like the Indian God Shiva because it is impossible to believe that such multitude of sounds and emotions could be achieved with two hands only. In the last minute of Shankar's performance, the camera moves aside letting us see the musicians and the totally fascinated and conquered listeners that give the genius performer the long standing ovation, and he thanks them back. While witnessing the incredible act of music born and performed in front of me, I only wished this moment never end. After the scene (and the film) was over, the first thing I did was to find out what I saw and to order the DVD on-line. Only when doing research, I learned about the Monterey International Pop Festival that was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The celebrated Woodstock happened two years after Monterey, in August, 1969.

My Criterion "Monterey Pop" DVD arrived surprisingly fast, and I was able to enjoy all performances recorded by D.A. Pennebaker's team that used newly newly-developed portable 16mm color cameras equipped to record synchronized sound. Sound was captured by Wally Heider's mobile studio on state-of-the art eight-track tape. To see and to listen to the talented and famous musicians, many of whom were just in the beginning of their careers was an unforgettable and joyous experience. Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkel, and Otis Redding, all became the celebrities after their first major public performances during the first and sadly the last Monterey International Rock Music Festival. Summer of Love started that weekend, forty one years ago at the small town of Monterey, CA, and that summer made Monterey immortal.

More than once I thought I wish I was there and could be a part of the magic festival. I know that the Monterey Pop will be one of my favorite DVD's and I will return to it over and over again.

Movie Review: This is oneof the only clips of Janis Joplin singing. Amazing!
Summary: 4 Stars

Janis Joplin was the main reason I bought this. The mamas and papas and simon and garfunkle were great too.

Movie Review: DVD Movie "Monertrey Pop"
Summary: 5 Stars

I had forgotten what a terrific movie this is. I consider it essential to all "baby boomers" that would like a walk down memory lane and remember what a cool and wonderful time the late sixties were. I recommend "The Complete Monerey Pop Festival" for any true "Hippie" with the complete performances of Jimi Hendrix & Otis Redding, as well as a lot of additional festival footage. I own both DVD's and enjoy them both, but in hindsight I would have bought "The Complete Monterey Pop Festival" and called it a day.

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Summary of Monterey Pop [VHS]

The first great rock concert documentary by the filmmaker who invented the form. D.A. Pennebaker (who teamed up with Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, and other filmmakers here), fresh off his Bob Dylan documentary, Don't Look Back, captured the music and scene of the first real rock & roll festival. The Monterey Pop Festival of 1967, which laid the groundwork for Woodstock two years later, offered an amazing array of talent that was absolutely of that moment. And, as the intervening years have shown, this music stood the test of time: from the young Janis Joplin blowing the crowd away with "Ball and Chain" to an instrument-smashing performance by the Who to the surprisingly soul-stirring showing by Otis Redding. One particular highlight: the American debut of a little-known rock trio called the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which knocked the crowd out of its seats with a guitar sound that had never been heard before--and culminated with Hendrix setting his guitar ablaze and worshipping the flaming feedback. --Marshall Fine

A special message from Lou Adler, an original promoter/producer for the Monterey International Pop Festival:

It was the first major Rock 'n' Roll Festival. No prerequisite.no precedents. We had no idea what to expect. The question of would people come was answered by mid-week prior to the start of the festival. They came and kept on coming. A major surprise was the extent of mainstream media coverage. When John Phillips and I arrived at the fairgrounds on the morning of the first day there were camera crews, photographers and journalists from all over the world. Add to that the advent of FM radio; and the following year Rolling Stone Magazine.Rock 'n' Roll was here to stay. Monterey gave birth to the first rock charity Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation, which continues to fund worthwhile causes in the names of the artists who appeared at Monterey. Precedents and prerequisites would be set for future concerts and festivals, including the overall treatment of the artist.Derek Taylor's handling of the press.Chip Monks' sound and lights.Pennebaker's groundbreaking movie "Monterey Pop. The true legacy of The Monterey International Pop Festival is not the crowd size.not the weather.not a violent incident.it is the music. The groundbreaking artists who were introduced (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who) and the "rock royalty" (Simon & Garfunkel, Otis Redding and The Mamas & The Papas) that performed there continue to be revered and continue to impact to this day the music and musicians who came after it happened in Monterey on June 16, 17, and 18, 1967.

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