The Maysles brothers’ Gimme Shelter is very different from many of today’s documentaries. Using a style known as Cinéma vérité, where there is no voiceover but where the camera angles, audio, and editing, as a unit, form the filmmaker’s opinion, the Maysles Brothers bored me to sleep with Gimme Shelter.
There were some things I liked about this style of documentary, however. Because the Stones were obviously very comfortable with the filming crew, Gimme Shelter really provided the audience an up-close encounter with the Stones. As a result, I felt like I “knew” the Stones much better than I did before. The scenes where we saw Mic watching the tape of his concerts was a very nice touch as they helped provide me with an understanding of the man off the stage. I must admit, this documentary was real. Usually that’s what I want in a documentary.
But in this documentary, “real” bored me to sleep. Whereas in highly regarded documentaries of recent times like Jesus Camp, King of Kong, Born into the Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, and Hell House, the film crews often interviewed their characters with specific questions, Gimme Shelter was too real for me because the crews never talked to Mic Jagger. As a result, I didn’t get to hear enough of the Stone’s opinions. But I definitely heard enough of their music as the movie used full songs throughout. This made the documentary even more boring.
After watching Gimme Shelter, I’m beginning to realize that a good documentary needs things to be staged every once in a while. There needs to be some sort of interaction between the crew and the real life thing they are recording. If there isn’t, the documentary just becomes simple footage with some editing and audio thrown in. That just doesn’t excite me.
