What makes a rock doc worthwhile?

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.

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 Vin​tage​Rock​.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.