Stefan Nemeth (ex-Radian, Lokia, Innode)
SPB: What is your favorite music-related film or documentary?
Nemeth: I thought quite a bit about it and I am not even sure if I have one.I did not see many music-related films and of these only a few have been permanently stored in my active memory.
However, the one which came most often to my mind was--strange enough--Gimmie Shelter from the Maysles brothers and Charotte Zwerin. Actually it did not give me too much background information or details about the tragic occurrence during the performance of the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Free Concert. It is somehow a relatively uncommented, distant view, which made the footage even stronger from the impact for me. I think it captures quite good how things slowly get out of control, how helpless the reaction of the band is. Usually it is them having the control. It is a moment where fiction or projection (or similar) collapse and the situation falls back into harsh reality. The cameras are always there and record something which was definitely not planned, in contrast to the footage showing Jagger and Watts looking at what happened. Their reaction seems a little ambiguous. Probably the film is ambiguous, too, as there seem to be a few gaps. On the other hand this is maybe its strength--that it leaves room for so many questions.
