Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1974)

          The musical adventures of British bad-boy rockers the Rolling Stones are more than sufficiently documented on film and video, so it’s to be expected that some of their visual recordings are more interesting than others. For example, Gimme Shelter (1970) is hypnotic because it captures the chaos of the band’s tragic Altamont appearance, whereas Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones lacks commensurate historical significance. Yet Ladies and Gentlemen is arguably the best snapshot of guitarist Mick Taylor’s time with the band. A replacement for troubled founding member Brian Jones, Taylor was the most polished musician ever to be a full member of the band, with the possible exception of indefatigable drummer Charlie Watts, and the way his arcing slide-guitar notes energize tunes from one of the Stones’ most creative periods is wonderful to behold. The presentation of this movie is disappointingly straightforward, with the camera trained almost exclusively on the musicians and way too much screen time consumed by lead singer Mick Jagger’s loose-limbed antics. However, the muscular attack formed by the band’s legendary rhythm section—in tandem with Taylor’s licks and the jabs and stabs of a horn section—has undeniable power.

          Filmed over four nights in Texas on the Sticky Fingers tour, Ladies and Gentlemen is fairly light on vintage tunes, favoring such then-recent cuts as “Bitch,” “Dead Flowers,” “Happy,” and “Tumbling Dice.” In fact, Jagger and co. seem a bit bored when charging through older tunes including “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man.” You can’t blame the lads for being jazzed about their Taylor-era sound, with its fluid melodies and sharp stings, though the Stones’ early-’70s affinity for country-and-western colorations is an acquired taste. Throughout this very short movie, which has been augmented with supplemental material for broadcast exhibition, theatrical re-releases, and video packages, Jagger leads the way with his duck lips and rooster hips, a preening dandy powered by arrogance and sex. If his routine meets your criteria for an ideal front man’s stage persona, rest assured Ladies and Gentlemen captures Jagger at an especially vital moment. Still, because the piece has a clinical feel, even with the band’s storied blend of loose grooves and tight musicianship, it’s hard to imagine anyone but a diehard Stones fan finding all 83 minutes of Ladies and Gentlemen compelling.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones: FUNKY

Gimme Shelter (1970)

          Providing a great moment of pop-culture symmetry, the two 1969 rock concerts that epitomized the apex and nadir of the ’60s, respectively speaking, both inspired essential documentaries that were released in 1970. Michael Wadleigh’s epic Woodstock joyfully depicts “three days of peace and music,” and the Maysles Brothers’ incisive Gimme Shelter tracks events leading to a tragedy during the Rolling Stones’ notorious outdoor show at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway. If Woodstock represents the dream of the ’60s, Gimme Shelter represents the nightmare. On every level, the Maysles’ film comprises sober introspection about costly mistakes.

          For instance, one of the picture’s slickest touches is a recurring device of Stones front man Mick Jagger watching footage from the in-progress movie while seated near an editing table. This trope leads, inexorably, to the chilling moment when Jagger reviews images of a Hell’s Angel scuffling with a concertgoer who subsequently died from stab wounds. Although the actual stabbing isn’t visible on camera, the implications of the images are unmistakable—the Stones and their representatives hired bikers with a reputation for violence to handle security at the free show, which drew an audience estimated at 300,000 people, so bloodshed was inevitable. Thus, the climactic moment of Gimme Shelter provides a perfect metaphor representing why the idealism of the ’60s flower children was never meant to last. Harmony, alas, is not humanity’s strong suit.

          Directed by Albert and David Maysles (with Charlotte Zerwin), Gimme Shelter is structured like a forensic report. Opening with Jagger in the editing room, the film reaches backwards for episodes from the Stones tour that preceded the Altamont show, as well as conversations between flamboyant attorney Melvin Belli (who repped he band) and the proprietors of potential venues. The Stones are shown performing numbers at shows prior to Altamont, particularly in New York City, although the early musical highlight is an outrageously suggestive performance by opening act Tina Turner. (“It’s nice to have a chick occasionally,” Jagger obnoxiously remarks.)

          Gimme Shelter truly comes alive, however, once the party reaches San Fransisco. Footage of roadies prepping a makeshift stage, and of fans smoking and tripping their way to bliss before the show starts, illustrate the groovy scene the Stones originally envisioned. After the Hell’s Angels show up—expecting to be paid with all the beer they can drink—things deteriorate rapidly. Warm-up sets by the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Jefferson Airplane are interrupted when overzealous Angels start fights with fans and musicians, even clocking Airplane singer Marty Balin while he performs. “Both sides keep temporarily fucking up,” the Airplane’s Grace Slick says from the stage. “Let’s not keep fucking up.” And yet the violence continues, even as the Stones try to play, ironically enough, “Sympathy for the Devil.” The last 45 minutes of Gimme Shelter, comprising the lead-up to the stabling and the violent act itself, are mesmerizing.

          And then it’s all over, with a last freeze frame of Jagger’s inscrutable expression once he stands up from the editing table, having seen enough.

Gimme Shelter: RIGHT ON

Performance (1970)

          Some releases from the year 1970 barely qualify as ’70s movies, not only because they were filmed and/or completed in 1969 but because the style and themes of the movies are tethered to the preceding decade. Performance epitomizes this conundrum even more than most 1970 releases, since the picture was actually made in 1968 but not commercially distributed until two years later. Nonetheless, because of the date on which it reached screens and because of important connections to various threads of ’70s cinema—notably the picture’s status as the directorial debut of English provocateur Nicolas Roeg—Performance merits consideration in this space. If I sound reluctant to engage with this particular film, I have my reasons. Having seen Performance two or three times over the years, I’ve always found the thing to be boring, indulgent, and silly. Yet at the same time, I regularly meet intellectually formidable people who revere the movie. So even though Performance is not remotely to my liking, I acknowledge the film’s unique power over certain discriminating viewers.

          Produced in the UK and co-directed by Roeg, who also served as cinematographer (his former profession), and Donald Cammell, who wrote the bizarre script, Performance depicts the collision of two unlikely characters. One of them is Chas (James Fox), a thug in the employ of a London gangster; the very first scene gives us a hint of his kinky inclinations, because he’s shown having a bondage-filled sexcapade with a girlfriend. After a criminal scheme goes awry, Chas flees his neighborhood for the safety of a different part of town, giving friends time to seek a passport for his planned travel to America. Dyeing his hair and adopting a fake name (the first of many games the film plays with identity), Chas seeks lodging in a flat owned by Turner (Mick Jagger), a onetime rock star now living as a recluse with two girlfriends, Lucy (Michele Breton) and Pherber (Anita Pallenberg).

          Whereas Chas’ old life was decidedly conventional—natty suits, short hair, tidy grooming, and heterosexual dating—Turner’s existence blurs cultural lines. Not only does Turner seem willing to have sex with anything that moves, but Turner also wears feminine clothes and makeup while lounging about his house in a perpetually drugged state. Determined to remain out of sight from the hoodlums who are pursuing him, Chas spends all his time with Turner and the ladies, eventually sampling the household’s various carnal, hallucinogenic, pharmaceutical, and sartorial delights. By the end of his time in the strange enclave—which is decorated like a cross between an opium den and a whorehouse—Chas has indulged in cross-dressing, drugs, and (perhaps) gay sex.

          The “perhaps” in the preceding sentence brings us to the defining aspect of Performance, which is the disjointed and surreal storytelling style Cammell and Roeg embraced not only here but also in their subsequent films. (After this collaborative endeavor, the duo separated; Roeg enjoyed a significant career, but Cammell remained a cult figure.) Right from the start, Performance is filled with tricky edits and shots that distort perception—sometimes it’s hard to tell when something is happening, sometimes it’s difficult to determine exactly what’s happening, and at all times, it’s anybody’s guess why things are happening. Especially when the movie gets completely bizarre toward the end, with a drug-addled sequence of Jagger singing in character to a roomful of naked gangsters while Cammell and Roeg splice in shots from the past, the future, and who-knows-where, Performance becomes the cinematic equivalent of a drug experience. All of this is compounded by a mind-fuck of an ending that combines murder and the possible transference of identity.

          I’m sure devoted fans of the movie can defend Performance’s fragmented storyline in at least two ways (by offering a linear explanation or by saying that the movie explores themes that run deeper than linear understanding), but for me, Performance still seems garish, noisy, and overwrought. What I won’t argue with, however, is the notion that Performance is a film of ambition and substance. Whether you dig it, therefore, depends on how effectively the filmmakers seduce you into deciphering their narrative hieroglyphics.

Performance: FREAKY

Ned Kelly (1970)

          The first in a string of violent ’70s features about 19th-century Australian outlaws, this offbeat pseudo-Western is notable for featuring rock star Mick Jagger’s first starring role as an actor. (The same year this picture was released, he costarred with James Fox in the freaky psychodrama Performance, but he’s the sole protagonist of Ned Kelly.) Since Jagger was well on his way toward becoming a living legend in the rock world at the time Ned Kelly was made, there’s no way to avoid the impression that acting was a lark rather than a serious endeavor, and, indeed, his halfhearted performance drains the movie of vitality right from the first frames.

          Awkwardly wrapping his voice around an Irish accent that varies from scene to scene (when not disappearing altogether), Jagger seems like a kid playing with toy guns whenever he flits around the screen brandishing firearms or leading his outlaw mates into action. Worse, the legendary charisma that Jagger exudes onstage is mostly absent from Ned Kelly, so even bit players command greater attention simply by giving committed performances.

          In Jagger’s meager defense, it’s not as if Ned Kelly would have been a spectacular film even with a better leading man. Directed by journeyman Tony Richardson, whose films often boasted more intensity than discipline, Ned Kelly explores the trite subject matter of a working-class criminal whose exploits lift him to folk-hero status, and the movie romanticizes Kelly so unrelentingly that frog-throated country crooner Waylon Jennings appears on the soundtrack singing ballads about Kelly during the picture’s many montages. These fanciful elements clash with the movie’s grimy production design, suggesting that Richardson was unsure whether to celebrate, or merely document, his subject.

          As did the real Ned Kelly, Jagger’s character turns to horse thievery when paying work proves scarce, eventually enlisting members of his extended immigrant clan as cohorts in criminality. Most of the picture features dull and interchangeable scenes of Ned and the lads committing crimes and avoiding authorities, relishing their celebrity when they see that rewards for their capture have increased. The somewhat novel climax involves Ned’s gang fashioning handmade armor for a decisive standoff, and Richardson’s filmmaking gets energized in the final moments: The key scene of Jagger facing his enemies while encased in head-to-toe iron has a memorably claustrophobic vibe. However, the fact that the costume is more interesting than the actor inside the costume speaks volumes about why Ned Kelly is mediocre at best.

          FYI, several Australian movies were made about Ned Kelly prior to the ’70s, a low-rent comedy about the character was made in 1993 by Aussie comedian Yahoo Serious, and Heath Ledger starred in a big-budget 2003 flop that was also titled Ned Kelly.

Ned Kelly: FUNKY