Celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the Monterey Pop International Festival,D. A. Pennebaker’s newly restored film premiered on Wednesday at the IFC Center in New York, with further festivities to follow in Monterey this week. The film is now part of the prestigious Criterion Collection. According to the recentClive Davis documentary, The Soundtrack of our Lives, it was at Monterey that the CBS executive signed Janis Joplin to a record deal, following instructions to look for something new and different. Janis Joplin’s vocals on “Ball ‘n’ Chain” in this state-of-the-art concert film are only one of its many revelations, its pure joy. The camera trains on her bell-bottoms and mules, her feet moving to the music much the way Monk’s feet shuffled under his piano. The camera cuts strategically to Cass Elliot’s enraptured face in the audience, and others sporting flower tiaras, tie-dyes, and flowing hair.
Captivating too is the rivalry between The Who (“My Generation”), with Pete Townsend destroying his guitar, and Keith Moon overturning his drum set, and the incomparable Jimi Hendrix(“Wild Thing”), humping his instrument, and setting it on fire. Now that’s hot sex!
Frazer Pennebaker talked about the film’s innovation, its attempt to mirror the rock aesthetic in the filmmaking. For Ravi Shankar’s “Dhun”, for example, you hear the music and see the audience reaction, teasing and building up to climax, not actually seeing the performers until you are completely taken over by the sound, achieving what Kerouac called “IT.” The moment is orgasmic.
Balancing out these inflammatory exhibitions is the sweet work of Otis Redding(“I’ve Been Lovin’ You Too Long”), Simon & Garfunkel (“The 59th Street Bridge Song”) and The Mamas and the Papas (“Got a Feelin’”). Seeing Cass Elliot again as he did at the 1967 event, D. A. Pennebaker said, brought tears to his eyes. At 92 this summer, he is off to Monterey this weekend for the anniversary, and his son Jo Jo will shoot this year’s festival. It’ll be great, of course, but for this history and feeling of innocence, nothing could ever top his dad’s Monterey Pop.
A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.