It Might Get Loud
a review by Isaac Thompson
“I didn’t laugh. I wept. It was so close to the truth.”
- U2’s the Edge on the first time he watched “This is Spinal Tap”.
The “rockumentary” is an idea that’s been around just about as long as rock and roll has, and why not? It makes perfect sense; rock and roll music is such a visceral art-form and the lives of rock stars are so chaotic that they translate effortlessly to film. There have been moments in rockumentaries that stand shoulder to shoulder with the greatest scenes in movie history:
- The Beatles final performance on the roof of the Apple studios in “Let it Be”.
- The infamous and truly haunting Rolling Stones film “Gimme Shelter” where the Stones organize a free concert in San Francisco and hire some local Hells Angels members as security guards resulting in the murder of an audience member during a performance of “Sympathy for the devil.”
- “Dig!”, a movie that documents the contrary paths of The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. As the Dandy Warhols build a steady successful career, the Brian Jonestown flounder in the self sabotage of their drug addled leader Anton Newcombe, culminating in a disastrous industry showcase gig/brawl at the L.A. Viper Room.
- Every second of Martin Scorsese’s Brilliant “The Last Waltz”. The Band’s last hurrah and one of the best concerts ever caught on film.
- and of course, the rockumentary, mock-umentary masterpiece, “This is Spinal Tap”.
But no marriage is perfect. Rock and roll and film often have a rocky relationship. With all the power they are capable of, rockumentaries have their shortcomings. Often documentaries are victim to the necessary trappings of film; Filmmakers have the need to build a story, with an arch and character development, something that has a well defined beginning, middle and end. Rock and roll, however, is a genre that was born out of a disregard for the rules, it is a force that hates constriction and film can often be too rigid a medium for such a spitfire entity. The biggest problem with rockumentaries is, like most film genres, predictability. They can be as formulaic as slasher movies or mobster flicks. And it’s because of that I consider “It Might get Loud” one of the best rockumentaries I’ve seen, it wasn’t at all what I expected it to be.
The setup for “It Might Get Loud” is simple enough, three great guitar players from three different eras of rock and roll (Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s the Edge, and The White Stripes’ Jack White) get together to jam and shoot the shit. They share a few tricks of the trade and talk a bit about how they got where they are today. It’s a premise that could really go either way, but this is a film that rises above a mere premise and becomes something much more interesting. “It Might Get Loud” is a love letter, not just to the guitar, but to passion. That’s the driving force behind the film, its three stars play different styles of music and may appeal to different audiences but they share an obsessive passion for music, and they all hold this passion dear to them. It’s the most obvious and endearing theme in the movie.
The entire film has an inviting, laidback jam-session feel and some amazing musical performances. My favourite being a jam between Jack white and his ten year old counterpart (I can’t explain that part, you just have to see it) in an old run-down house. Jack bashes on a beat-up clunker piano, stomping his foot to the beat like the possessed love child of Jerry Lee Lewis and Stompin’ Tom Connors, with a dash of Ledbelly. You can feel the floor boards shake as if the entire house might come tumbling down in submission to the awesome power of the blues.
The film interweaves the footage of the epic jam session with the personal history of each musician. Director Davis Guggenheim managed to get his stars (all three very elusive, private and interview shy) to open up about their pasts and share more about their beginnings than ever before. Even Jimmy Page, whose entire history is legendary, has revealing new stories to share. The more they share of their past the more similarities begin to pop up. They are three true stories of how passion and drive conquered.
What makes “It Might Get Loud” better than the typical rock movie with talking heads and concert footage is that the musicians don’t just talk about how they create, they show how they create and that makes for fascinating film. Even if you don’t care for U2, Led Zeppelin or the White Stripes by the time the credits role you’ll have a fonder appreciation for their sincerity and what they’re trying to accomplish.
