As of writing, the recently released documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin is taking critics and fans by storm. Two years ago, Hobbiton’s favorite son, Peter Jackson culled a ton of film footage from the ‘Let It Be’ sessions to create The Beatles: Get Back, a celebratory reimaging of what the public had always thought a sad end to a great band. Looking into the annals of rock doc history, Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy of films are generally regarded as the quintessential read of the late 80s L.A. punk-to-rock music progression.
In the ‘70s we were treated to multiple midnight concert movie nights bettered by an exploration of Jimi Hendrix and his music in a self-titled documentary, and after his comeback special in 1968, we learned in Elvis: That’s the Way It Is how that watershed as much rekindled the king, as thrust him into the live shows that arguably were his downfall. And lest we forget the granddaddy of early rock docs: D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 Don’t Look Back, revealing the real enigmatic Bob Dylan on tour, infinitely more interesting than even the competent portrayal Timothée Chalamet attempted.
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These examples and a handful more give fans what they most yearn for and most respond to: what master prog violinist Joe Deninzon, leader of the band Stratospheerius and current violinist with Kansas, calls “a good history lesson to be learned about a valid art form.” But the above notwithstanding, why have rock docs in general so often missed the mark, ending up being nothing much more than a concert film with some backstage snippets thrown in – and what could make them better?
If there is one factor that seems to make movies of any genre rise above their contemporaries, it is that the makers of the film – and in the case of rock docs, be they the band members, close minders, family and friends, or simply fans – need to speak honestly. Be the film a warts-and-all exposé, like Metallica revealing their conflict-laden day-to-day soap opera in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, infamous L.A. session musicians relating their time in the studio trenches in The Wrecking Crew or the case of the aforementioned Becoming Led Zeppelin, where co-directors Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, gained unprecedented access to the surviving band members, plus a rare unheard interview by the band’s departed drummer John Bonham. Not only were viewers treated to Messrs. Page, Plant, and Jones, giving their thoughts and histories but there was also the never-before-heard Bonham interview, as well as the poignant reactions to his words from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones when listening to snippets of this recording.
A good rock doc is also a window into a time. A flipped coin example of this, where one movie works as a fun romp and the other a historic document, is a pair of films expounding on the same year in American history. When we juxtapose the Woodstock concert film with the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin’s documentary Gimme Shelter, we see, writ large, the difference between a deep dive and a simple music coverage. Where Woodstock is really not much more than a dizzy tri-screen capture of mostly music from a mud-filled three days, Gimme Shelter puts a final and chilling period on one of the most tumultuous years in our recent history, all finalized during a chilly night The Rolling Stones played a free concert at Altamont Speedway in California in 1969. We as much see the ending concert in Gimme Shelter as what leads up to it; lawyer wrangling and The Rolling Stones recording, playing and all but marching across America in that time.
There is also the music to consider, surely an integral part of any music documentary. Fans and casual listeners alike have sat through too many music documentaries where sound-a-like songs or even video is used to fill up a soundtrack or movie because the filmmakers have not been granted specific music/visual rights. As in The Beatles: In the Life, where oft-seen video footage of the Fab Four is interspersed with out-of-focus stage performance of who-know-what-band and the filmmakers were seemingly granted only limited access to actual Beatles music so odd instrumental music is added in.
Or we simply get too little music – at least from the actual artists who made it. Sitting through Jacob Dylan, fine musician though he is, and his contemporaries playing the songs of the ’60s artists featured in the movie Echo in the Canyon, is way too much of the new attempting to pay homage to the old and coming up short. If one has ever yearned for the originals of the songs played in a rock doc, one is aching by the end of this movie to surely hear even an echo of them (sorry for unavoidable pun).
Then there’s chronic tomfoolery some filmmakers feel they need to ply. While non-linear storytelling works wonders for Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and even Orson Wells. But unless a documentary begins at the end of a band’s career and unfolds over flashbacks, jumping around a band’s historical timeline, or not being specific about doing so, can prove to induce mental whiplash. Take a peek, if you dare, into the surely niche world of King Crimson in In The Court of Crimson King for too many cuts in and out of the band’s timeline, and watching the Grateful Dead’s Long Strange Trip there are simply too many gaps in the band’s history presented, such as when drummer Mickey Hart left the band for three years (which is never mentioned).
While it’s unfair to hold biopics such as Oliver Stone’s The Doors or Dexter Fletcher’s Bohemian Rhapsody to the same standards as documentary, the same can’t be said for the bait-and-switch of music films that are part actual footage/part enacted drama, like 2017’s leaden ABBA: When All Is Said and Done. Watching films like this, you find yourself yearning for only actual footage of the actual band.
We also need to remember that, as noted, although wonderful, concert films like Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense, and 1964’s T.A.M.I. Show exist, they are not rock docs. Pink Floyd are set to follow the Led Zeppelin mandate by re-releasing their Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii in IMAX in April 2025, and although that movie does have some choice moments of the Floydians in-studio working on what would become their masterpiece ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ the snippets don’t much lift Pompeii, weird and discordant as it is, from truly only being a concert film.
With VH1’s Behind the Music series running on the music channel from 1997-2004 as it did (and presently streaming) the short form of in-depth band exploration became almost ubiquitous. But as we have seen in all that we have been buried under via the digital dissemination of art, the cream doesn’t always rise to the top. In fact, with the glut of rock docs coming at us all the time from every quarter, that cream is all too often curdled. And surely for all the good Behind the Music might have done in accomplishing what Joe Deninzon wishes for, the format is limited by time and far from cinematic. Have we become so used to this standard we don’t demand more?
“I think when the Beatles Anthology series came out in 1995, that really set the bar high for what you could do within the confines of a rock documentary. There are classics that came before, but Anthology was more effective at telling a story, whereas the others are records of events,” says VintageRock.com founder Shawn Perry. This week-long American broadcast TV documentary indeed kept to a strict chronology, featured the surviving Beatles of the time, and at its last moments revealed a new Beatles song to the world.
As so often happens, maybe The Beatles should be the last word in all things popular music, and surely for what makes a good rock doc. Ideally, the rock doc should be removed from a concert movie (as fun and communal as they can be) and told with attention to details even the most casual fan will notice. The on-screen talent should serve up some sure insights – even better if they’re the band members themselves – and it’s certainly advantageous if the filmmakers can clear rights for the relevant music and visuals the artist made in their time. With these simple elements in play, a rock doc can turn out to be more than just a visual parade of musical anecdotes and cosy nostalgia. It can become a work of art in itself.
