[2 articles]
Q&A with Albert Maysles, director of Rolling Stones doc Gimme Shelter
http://www.straight.com/article-320602/vancouver/conversation-albert-maysles-director-rolling-stones-documentary-gimme-shelter
By Brian Lynch
April 29, 2010
Legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles had a front-row view of the moment
when the Flower Power movement of the late '60s slid irrevocably into
chaos. Maysles, now 83, will be in Vancouver tomorrow and Saturday
(April 30 and May 1) for screenings of his groundbreaking
documentaries, among them the classic 1970 concert film Gimme
Shelter, which depicts the Rolling Stones' infamous December 1969
show at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. Along with his
brother, David, and a crew of camera operators, Maysles captured an
event marred by powerful drugs and pool-cue-swinging violence
unleashed on audience members by drunken Hells Angels, who'd been
hired by the Stones as security. As the film shows, the chaos peaked
with the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old audience member, Meredith
Hunter, only yards from the band.
Maysles will be on-hand at Pacific Cinémathèque on Friday (April 30)
to take questions between showings of Gimme Shelter and his 1976 cult
favourite Grey Gardens. Also on the program will be Get Yer Ya-Ya's
Out, a half-hour film composed of outtakes from the Gimme Shelter footage.
The following evening (May 1), he'll be at Capilano University for a
retrospective of his storied career and a look at his current projects.
The Straight recently caught up with Maysles by phone at his New York office.
Georgia Straight: By the time you made Gimme Shelter, the Rolling
Stones were already very famous. Does that kind of subject create
challenges for a documentary filmmakera group of people who are that
used to performing, that conscious of their own image?
Albert Maysles: Not really. I'm very good at getting access to people
so that they feel very comfortable in my presence and just go on
being themselves. So we didn't have that problem with the camera being there.
GS: Still, someone like Mick Jagger is very used to being observed.
Did you ever wonder whether you were looking at an act sometimes?
AM: No, I didn't feel that way at all.
GS: What did you think the film was going to be originally? The
events probably turned out quite different from what you expected.
AM: I'm an optimist by nature, so I had no idea that it was going to
turn out so badly in so many ways. But I was nevertheless determined
to make it more than just a concert film, and it certainly was that,
with all the things that took place being part of the story.
GS: If the events at Altamont hadn't happened, what were you aiming for?
AM: Whatever there was. It turned out to be what it was with all
those bad events, butI don't know. I can't guess.
GS: What drew you to the subject initially?
AM: I didn't even know who the Stones were. And I got a call from
[famed cinematographer] Haskell Wexler…and he happened to be in
contact with the Stones. This was just when the Stones were in
California, about to come to New York. So he called me up and said,
"The Stones are going to be at the Plaza Hotel tomorrow. You may want
to meet them." So my brother and I went to the Plaza and knocked on
the door, got to know them. They told us they were performing in
Baltimore the next night, so that would be a good chance to get to
know them better, and their music. So we went to Baltimore, and we
thought, "Oh my God, these guys are really good." And we made a deal
right away. So a couple of days later we were filming at Madison
Square Garden.
GS: And that's the footage we see near the start of the movie?
AM: Yup. In fact, just recently we went back to the extra material
that we didn't put into the film, and material of the performances at
Madison Square Garden, and made a whole new film called Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out.
GS: At what point did you realize that this was going to be something
exceptional?
AM: Well, even at Madison Square Garden, the performances were so
good and the audience was so much with itwhich of course is a major
part of the whole film, their performance and their
personalitiesthat we recognized it right away as being an enormous
asset for the film. And of course we'd get more of it in California.
Actually, my favourite scene in the whole film is not them performing
but listening to the playback of "Wild Horses" at the recording
studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
GS: At Altamont, it was you and your brother operating cameras, along
with several others, right?
AM: Oh yeah. If you look at the credits, there's something like 15 or
18 more cameras.
GS: So how did you stay coordinated in an environment that got pretty chaotic?
AM: Well, we lost contact, of course, with all these guys. But they
were mostly people that we knew, and they knew our way of filming, so
that there weren't any interviews or anything of that sort. They just
went out on their own, all over the place.
GS: And where were you?
AM: Early on, I was in the crowd, just to the left of the stage. In
fact, I was probably going to stay there except that the man just in
front of me got up and said, "If you stay right here, I'll kill you." [laughs]
GS: Was that one of the Hells Angels?
AM: No, it was just an ordinary person. I think he may have thought
that with his son just below me that the camera might fall on him. I
mean, that's the best I can think of, about what his problem was.
Anyway, I moved out of there very quickly and went up on the stage,
which was good because it was a better position to film the Stones
and the audienceI could see the audience. But as a matter of fact,
where I was standing before was exactly where the killing took place.
I didn't get that, but my brother with another camera was standing on
a truck just outside of the stage area and was able to see that
exactly, and he got the shot.
GS: Watching the film again, it all looks so claustrophobic, and you
have that sense of the huge crowd behind that scene. Did you ever
think "We should get out of here"?
AM: No, because I wanted to get that story, no matter what it was,
even with the beatings and all that negative stuff. The oddest part
of the whole thing is that one of the Hells Angels kept after me,
wanting to help me carry my bag. So I let him do that. What's perhaps
overlooked is that the Hells Angels had all these problems largely
because the guy who normally would be in command was out of town, was
unavailable, so one of the young guys who was inexperienced at
controlling the Hells Angels was in charge. So they were uncontrolled
and behaved so badly.
GS: So a senior member of the Hells Angels would normally have been there?
AM: Yeah, so there would have been more control.
GS: After that show, did the band ever seem to have second thoughts
about releasing the film?
AM: Oh yeah. In fact, when we finished the film we hadn't secured a
release from them up to that point. And when we asked for the
release, they just didn't have the heart to give us the release. I
assume that was Mick Jagger's decision. So six months went by without
a release, and my brother met up with the guyI forget his name, the
producer of the film Performance [Sanford Lieberson]but my brother
met up with him, and he asked to see the film. We showed him the film
and explained that we didn't have a release, and he said, "Oh, I'll
talk to Mick." He liked the film and talked to Mick, and Mick gave us
the release. But we had to wait for it for six months.
GS: The footage that we see of Mick Jagger sitting in the edit room,
watching the filmhe does seem seriously alarmed at reviewing the events.
AM: Oh yeah. Some people have interpreted his reaction at the editing
table as not caring about what happened. But I don't think that's
true at all. He comes across as being very seriously disturbed.
GS: Did this experience change you as a filmmaker?
AM: No. What happens is, you make a film like that and you get some
of the critics who are a little bit crazy in their reviews. For
example, Vincent Canby of the New York Timesa very decent guy and
allin his review he said something to the effect that "The Maysles
must have thought 'How wonderful!'" when we saw that we had a killing
on film. Which is okay, except that the editor titled the review with
the statement "Making Murder Pay". So that, of course, disturbed us a
lot. We weren't exploiting the film. The events had to be shown. But
then other critics also questioned our motivation in showing it [the
attack on Meredith Hunter]. Of course, if we didn't have it, then
they'd say, "Where were you guys? You missed the most important
thing." So they got you coming and going. [laughs]
GS: There are other famous concert documentaries from that time, like
the film about Woodstock. What role does yours play? How is yours different?
AM: Woodstock was quite a different sort of thing. There were a lot
of interviews, which we wouldn't do, and we didn't use. If you've got
the story, then why do you have to superimpose an interview on it?
Each question determines the answer that you get, so it's not as
accurate a thing as you really want. Then, also, there were a number
of crazy things going on too at Woodstock. People were on bad drugs
there as well. But none of that got filmed. In fact, you'd know that
they wouldn't show that, even from the interviews. The interviews
are, "Well, isn't everything wonderful? Isn't it great? It's
wonderful." And of course people say, "Yeah, sure, it's great." So
they missed some of the bad stuff.
GS: The '60s are still kind of a touchstone in political debates now.
On the left, people think of it as a magical time, and on the right
people say it's a warning about social mayhem. Where does Gimme
Shelter fit in?
AM: Well, I've often thought of it in relation to the film that we
made of the Beatles in 1964, when they came to America [What's
Happening! The Beatles in America]. That was, of course, an entirely
different story, and different characters as well. But people have
said that if you want to know the '60s, just look at those two films.
GS: And, as you said, films like the one about Woodstock wanted to
turn away from the scarier facets.
AM: Right. They wanted to show everything to be rosy. And a lot of it
was. But then there was a dark side as well.
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Documentary master Albert Maysles returns to dark side of '60s
http://www.straight.com/article-319971/vancouver/director-returns-dark-side-60s
By Brian Lynch
April 28, 2010
Legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles had a front-row view of the moment
when the Flower Power movement of the late '60s slid irrevocably into
mayhem. Maysles, now 83, will be in Vancouver Friday and Saturday
(April 30 and May 1) for screenings of his groundbreaking
documentaries, among them the classic 1970 concert film Gimme
Shelter, which depicts the Rolling Stones' infamous December 1969
show at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. Along with his
brother, David, and a crew of camera operators, Maysles captured an
event marred by powerful drugs and pool-cue-swinging violence
unleashed on audience members by drunken Hells Angels, who'd been
hired by the Stones as security. As the film shows, the chaos peaked
in a fatal stabbing that took place only yards from the band.
The footage of the Altamont show, which makes up the last half of
Gimme Shelter, has the claustrophobic quality of a truly bad trip.
Did Maysles ever feel that he and his crew should flee?
"No, because I wanted to get that story, no matter what it was, even
with the beatings," Maysles told the Straight by phone from his New
York office. "The oddest part of the whole thing is that one of the
Hells Angels kept after me, wanting to help me carry my bag. So I let
him do that."
The resulting image of the era is, as the revered director pointed
out, much starker than what's portrayed in films like Woodstock,
which came out the same year.
"Woodstock was quite a different sort of thing," he says in his
gentle New England accent. "There were a number of crazy things going
on, too, at Woodstock. People were on bad drugs there as well. But
none of that got filmed. In fact, you'd know that they wouldn't show
that even from the interviews. The interviews are, 'Well, isn't
everything wonderful? Isn't it great?' So they missed some of the bad
stuff.…They wanted to show everything to be rosy. And a lot of it
was. But then there was a dark side as well."
Maysles will be at Pacific Cinémathèque (1131 Howe Street) on Friday
(April 30) for showings of Gimme Shelter (7 p.m.) and his 1976 cult
favourite Grey Gardens (9:40 p.m.). He'll take questions between the
two films. At 7:30 p.m. the following evening (May 1), he'll be at
the Capilano Performing Arts Theatre (2055 Purcell Way, North
Vancouver) for a retrospective of his storied career.
.
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