Video Americain

Review

Definitive film record of The Rolling Stone's 1969 U.S. Tour including footage from the infamous Altamont Speedway concert. The film starts with outstanding recordings of the Stones doing "Satisfaction," "Jumping Jack Flash," "Honky Tonk Woman" from their Madison Square Garden performances. The sense of foreboding is recorded with the Maysles (Grey Gardens & Salesman) usual spare elegance. The Altamont concert is infamous because the Hell's Angels were hired as security guards and they murdered four people at the concert. Very sad scenes of the band watching rough edits of the fights at the concert are interspersed with scenes from the lawyer's office and actual concert footage. The Maysles have truly captured the clash of the Hell's Angels with 300,000 hippies that ended the summer of love. This is the 30th Anniversary restored version with a new high-definition transfer created from the original negative. Also features previously censored footage. For lovers of rock-n-roll films this is a necessity. (George Lucas is listed as a cameraman in the credits)

 -- David Gorgos