Called the greatest rock film ever made, this landmark documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway, Direct Cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin were there to immortalize on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade’s dreams into disillusionment.
Cast
| Mick Jagger |
| Keith Richards |
| Mick Taylor |
| Charlie Watts |
| Bill Wyman |
Credits
| Director | David Maysles, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin |
| Editing | Ellen Giffard, Robert Farren, Joanne Burke and Kent McKinney |
| Associate producer | Porter Bibb |
| Special help | Stanley Goldstein |
| Assistant film editors | Mirra Bank, Susan Steinberg and Janet Lauretano |
| Filmed by | The Maysles Brothers |
| Camera | Peter Adair, Baird Bryant, Joan Churchill, Ron Dorfman, Robert Elfstrom, Elliott Erwitt, Bob Fiori, Adam Giffard, William Kaplan, Kevin Keating, Stephen Lighthill, George Lucas, Jim Moody, Jack Newman, Pekke Niemela, Robert Primes, Eric Saarinen, Peter Smokler, Paul Ryan, Coulter Watt, Gary Weiss and Bill Yarrus |
| Sound | Michael Becker, John Brumbaugh, Howard Chesley, Pepper Crawford, Stanley Cronquist, Paul Deason, Tom Goodwin, Peter Pilafin, Orly Lindgren, Walter Murch, Art Rochester, David Thompson, Nelson Stoll and Alvin Tokunow |
by Ralph "Sonny" Barger
Nov 13, 2000
All the opening bands had finished playing, and it was time for the Stones to come out. The sun was still out and there was plenty of daylight left. The crowd had waited all day to see the Stones perform, and they were sitting in their trailers acting like prima donnas. The crowd was getting . . .
by Michael Lydon
Nov 13, 2000
In the fall of 1969, I landed the coolest possible writing gig: touring with the Rolling Stones on assignment from the New York Times (the Times rejected the hundred . . .
by Godfrey Cheshire
Nov 13, 2000
Gimme Shelter is the film I’ve seen more than any other. I guess you could say I was obsessed with it for a spell. I saw it first during its premiere New York run in late 1970. Back home in North Carolina shortly thereafter, I followed it through the celluloid food chain of the time . . .
by Stanley Booth
Nov 13, 2000
The first words we hear are Sam Cutler’s: “Everybody seems to be ready—are we ready?”
We were nowhere near ready for what was to come, there at the bitter end of the sixties. I remember that rainy day so well, when the opening scene of Gimme Shelter was filmed. We drove up to . . .
by Georgia Bergman
Nov 13, 2000
By the end of the summer of 1969, my life with the Rolling Stones had taken on a fairy-tale quality. The Stones were the Lost Boys and I was Wendy. True, Brian Jones had died. But even his death had occurred at a storybook locale—Christopher Robin’s house by the Heffalump Wood. We gave a free . . .
by Amy Taubin
Nov 13, 2000
Gimme Shelter documents the last ten days of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 North American tour, from the ecstatic appearances at Madison Square Garden on Thanksgiving . . .
