Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

This is a review I wrote for my website, Gamenikki.com. It was done a while ago for the Criterion release of "The Complete Monterey Pop Festival" on DVD.

At the height of the Summer of Love, two years before Woodstock ever gave a symbol for a music era, there was Monterey. Ask most people if they know what the Monterey Festival was all about, and you’ll mostly get blank stares. Ask if they know what Woodstock was all about, and you’ll get all the usual replies of hippies, music and acid. Which is essentially what Monterey was, on a larger and more peaceful scale. With Vietnam practically a non-issue in music at the time (compared to Woodstock, where the issue absolutely dominated), Monterey is the perfect vision of a genre of music at its top game, even though iconic singers like Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and others were unable to make it. Although the festival would’ve been even better with them (all were tied up either in obligations, except the Beatles which simply made the oath previously to never appear live again), it was certainly no slouch. In fact, the lack of the ‘superstars’ actually helped fuel Monterey as a breakout spot for many of the bands and singers we now consider part of that decade’s essential artists. Jimi Hendrix in his big American debut, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding’s last big event, The Who, the Grateful Dead. All of these were at Monterey, and documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker captured everything he could. There are pieces missing all over of course, no Grateful Dead songs made the cut on either the final version or the ‘outtakes/more performances’, because they were simply too long… but overall, he did a great job. And although you can argue his slant might’ve been pointed too sharply at “everything’s grand!” and not a really accurate portrayal of some of the bad things that went on at Monterey, it’s a great addition to the Criterion Collection.

Criterion already houses one music concert/documentary, and there are obviously going to be parallels drawn all over to the Maysles brother’s Gimme Shelter. I think it’s neat that Criterion picked up Monterey Pop, because it plays off Shelter so well to create sort of bookends for the decade. Monterey was peace and love at the beginning, Gimme Shelter is death and destruction at the end. One other connection? One of the cameramen for Monterey Pop was none other than Albert Maysles himself, gaining useful experience for the next time a musical documentary was tackled.

Right off the bat, we get a little background info on the concert from the founder, John Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas. The idea was to create a charity concert, with higher-priced seat tickets than usual for admittance to a three-day festival of some of the biggest acts. Phillips called in all the favors to get some of the biggest artists to come, but of course as we noted earlier there were some biggies that couldn’t make it, despite being involved in the planning. More importantly, Phillips let many smaller acts who had top notch talent come and play right next to the big boys, creating many careers in the process. Although there were backstage feuds and politics, Monterey Pop is definitely less interested in how the concert was created and how it was run than simply covering the great music that was made there. In fact, most of the camerawork is centered right on the band, only occasionally will a camera cutback to show a grooving audience; with the exception of one or two segments that do a sort of walk around the festival grounds to the tunes of Ravi Shankar (who goes on way too long, but we’ll get to that). The important thing to consider with Monterey Pop, is the package as a whole. The first film is a great start, with performances from many now famous rock acts, but it skimps on some of the bigger parts of the Festival – notably the jazz that played more most of Saturday night. If you add in the bands covered by the ‘Outtakes’ disc, then the collection of performances becomes even greater. Just about everyone gets a share of the spotlight… except the Grateful Dead… and the two classic performances, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding, get their entire sets on a separate disc. So if it’s all combined together, the collection is massive and has few holes, music-wise.

Monterey Pop would be fine if it was just an ordinary concert, but the Monterey Festival also housed some famous actual performances. Such classic images as Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, Pete Townshed of The Who smashing his guitar on the stage,
and of course the one and only Otis Redding. Although the mood throughout is obviously all peace and love and very little negativity (at least shown through Pennebaker’s camera lens), it’s hard not to view Monterey with some form of sadness. Three months after what could be called his career-defining performance at Monterey, Otis Redding died young in a plane crash. Only a few years after breaking at Monterey, Jimi Hendrix overdosed. Janis Joplin was killed too soon, and it seems like almost every artist here saw one of their last great moments on stage. But if we were to ignore the tragic future that would happen right after Monterey, then it’s a great experience. I like classic rock and roughly 90% of the bands who were at Monterey, so of course Monterey Pop is aimed right at folks like me. It has a few problems, like the lack of Grateful Dead (but who could predict their rise to fame… not to mention the average song length of ten minutes…), and the pacing. The movie rocks all the way through until it just smacks right into itself as Ravi Shankar comes on stage. Some people can stand fifteen minutes of Indian instrumentals, but not me… my attention soon wandered and it seemed like he got an unfair amount of screen time almost because he was ‘exotic’ or something. Those are the faults of Monterey Pop, but the infectious music and solid lyrics throughout will make even the most cynical curmudgeon snap their fingers. This is truly a great concert package that must not be missed.

With around four hours of material total, counting every disc in Monterey Pop, there’s an absolute load of film to check over for perfection. It seems like age got the best of Monterey Pop in the form of a light layer of grain throughout, but other than that only the occasional dust, scratch or vertical line ever cross the screen. It’s easy to zone out the slight grain, and the effect seems to disappear completely when the camera zooms in (which is frequently). There are a few other small but odd visual things that come from lighting. Since the filmmakers couldn’t rig the lighting like The Last Waltz crew could, they basically had to deal with what was given. This presents problems on the Simon and Garfunkel set, because the two played at night… with only minimal lighting. This makes the effect look more washed out than the other artist sets (see screen eight for the big example), because most rock bands used the big psychedelic swirling background to light up the night. This washed out image is only present on the Simon and Garfunkel set, which is a shame… they’re one of my favorites. The quality overall is very decent, I expect a slight layer of grain in any film that’s older and in color, and when moving it’s not distracting at all. Monterey Pop is a simple documentary, so it won’t win any awards for innovative cinematography (although the light background trick for the Otis Redding set was really a neat idea)… but the movie(s) look fine and probably the best they ever have. One other thumbs up for Criterion in what’s going to be a long list of them.

When we start discussing the audio, it’s practically impossible to without gushing. Usually Criterion has a small note about the audio restoration, but here they devoted an entire set of extras to show how the audio was restored… and for good reason. Not only is Monterey Pop absolutely crack, hiss and pop free, it also has one of the most kicking Dolby 5.1 and DTS tracks ever put on a disc. Eddie Kramer is the man responsible for the audio mixes, and he’s also the one behind the Jimi Hendrix post-death remastered discs and the Woodstock movie and soundtrack. The experience shows through here; this is a movie that DEMANDS a surround sound system and it demands to be played loud. The audience comes from the sides as the band assaults from any applicable angles, depending on where the camera is. It’s amazing that such sound was possible from a source that wasn’t originally coded for surround. Eddie Kramer is truly my new audio god. If there was a negative at all, it would be the fact that the outtakes disc was left in mostly usual stereo (although still very crisp and clear); giving only a few key performances the Dolby treatment. The DTS track on Monterey Pop has a little more oomph in the subwoofer and more dynamics in the speaker separation, but to be honest – you’re going to get a great sounding movie whether you go Dolby 5.1 or DTS. Truly one of the finest concert audio experiences I’ve ever heard.

And finally, we reach the very last segment. With a three disc set and a MSRP high enough to make just about everyone cringe; one would think Criterion would have to make our time worthwhile. Despite providing a good package of movies dealing with Monterey, providing good video and some killer audio, it seems Criterion still had some form of energy left to tackle the extras. The features for Disc One would be an audio commentary for the movie itself, with Pennebaker mostly taking the stage; even though festival producer Lou Adler is also on the track. There’s a video interview with Pennebaker and Lou Adler, which is a little puzzling since we’ve heard most of it already on the commentary track. Finally for disc one we’re presented a selection of audio interviews, featuring John Phillips from the Mamas and Papas, one of the leaders of the festival’s organization, a few artists involved (David Crosby, among others) and the other leaders of the festivals. A nice selection of supplements, rounded out by the inclusion of a short essay piece on the restoration of the audio and video. Onto disc two, with Jimi Plays Monterey and Shake! Otis At Monterey, we get three commentary tracks. Jimi Hendrix gets music critic Charles Murray, which is a fun listen because he isn’t a stiff shirt like many other critics, he’s definitely not above occasionally oohing and aahing as he is still continually impressed with the raw skills of Hendrix, in addition to adding notes about his career and performance at Monterey. Because the Otis Redding portion is short at only around twenty minutes, he gets two commentary tracks, both from Peter Guralnick. One covers the history of Otis Redding’s ‘rise to fame’, and the other is a more conventional song-by-song talk about his performance at Monterey. Good stuff to be sure. We also get a twenty-minute video interview with Redding’s old agent and friend, Phil Walden. Plenty of great stories about the time they grew up in, with Walden being a big fan of ‘black music’ even though he was a white boy in the south, making it a social taboo. There are more little things crammed here and there, like photos from the concert and behind the scenes, some trailers, etc. on the first two discs. The third disc is all outtakes, at over an hour and a half of performances. Some people may count this as a big extra, but I honestly count the outtakes as an addition to the content of the film itself, not an extra… although I suppose if you wanted to call it one it would definitely help the case for Monterey Pop being one of the more packed productions Criterion has put together. Besides the discs, there’s a booklet included with the package that’s as thick as one of the slip-sleeves for the disc. It’s a booklet of essays, photos and artwork from Monterey, with a snazzy cover from the Beatles themselves. The essays go chronologically, and they definitely raise some interesting questions. To read the Newsweek correspondence from Monterey, there was definitely more ‘bad’ going on than Pennebaker saw fit to cover, and the dialog between the festival organizers and the people who held off a second Monterey Festival due to rampant drug use and fornication at the first one is at least historically interesting. To cap that off, we have an essay from the modern era reflecting back on the music scene Monterey Pop sought to cover. Taken as a collective unit, the extras in this package are certainly nearly exhausting, and it has the distinction of having all good, solid stuff… zero filler.

With Monterey Pop, it’s obvious that Criterion has lavished all the attention on a set necessary to score it the ‘Criterion DVD of the Year’ award. Any category you choose is top notch, from the best concert sound presentation I’ve heard (and for a concert that’s nearing its 40th anniversary!), a good transfer, a nice load of extras and of course good content. The sticker shock at almost $80 will drive a lot of people away, but at a preorder the set can be had for $55. For three discs of pure great music lovin’, I view that as an absolute bargain. While we haven’t got our mitts on Solaris just yet, it’s certainly going to have a hell of an act to follow. And in the immortal words of Otis Redding – included for no reason at all – SHAKE!


SCORES:
Movie: 9.3/10
Video: 8.0/10
Audio: 10.0/10
Extras: 10.0/10

OVERALL: 9.5/10 - A MUST PURCHASE

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older