Jim Jarmusch's documentary on Iggy Pop and the Stooges plays on the title of the 1970 Maysles brothers’ documentary, Gimme Shelter. That movie was about the tragic free concert put on by The Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane, among others, at Altamont Speedway, which ended in the death of one of the concertgoers. Mick Jagger looks torn and shaken; there is the sense that an era has ended. It’s not a fun and easy movie. Weirdly enough, Jarmusch doesn’t incorporate any of that sense of loss in his treatment of The Stooges. Instead he paints a triumphant picture, somewhere between a tribute and an fanzine. But somehow, maybe inadvertently, it’s just as sad as the Maysles’ movie.
To begin with the technical side, the pacing is a little off, and you get the sense that Jarmusch doesn’t have a lot of footage to work with. We start by watching the band dissolve — sick and broken ex-punks going back to their suburban homes. We then rewind and are given the full story. The thing is, once we build chronologically to the prologue again, instead of an epilogue there is in fact a substantial section afterwards. It’s also a documentary that relies primarily on talking-head interviews. The main players are all there. Iggy Pop is in a gilded room, with his tar-pitch voice and flash of fake teeth. Then there are the Asheton brothers, Danny Fields and many more (basically the same people they got to talk for Please Kill Me). To fill in the visual blanks, Jarmusch uses kitschy old footage, mostly from old movies it appears, and cartoon illustrations as well.
You get your standard commentary on Iggy as jester/clown/genius, and you get a little bit of politics (mostly through the section on MC5, who were probably treated too gently here (see Please Kill Me).) Most of this sort of falls by the wayside as you find that the documentary is really about a bunch of old men looking to regain the glory days, culminating with Iggy Pop standing at his Hall of Fame induction, declaring who and what is cool.
It’s not bad and it’s not wrong. I too really wanted Scott Asheton to be able to play with his band one last time before he died. But the documentary devolves into a long, messy obituary and an unnecessary justification of The Stooges’ legacy. This is not exactly an obscure band, so it’s a weirdly hollow thesis. But Jarmusch does great things to set off the music. He executes the standard music-docu lead-up to the composition of a famous song with aplomb. Give a little conflict, give some inspiration, then finally give it to the audience full blast. (If only that was what the creative process were actually like.) So in the end, the movie leaves you feeling riled up but mostly without any meaning or purpose. Actually, that’s very punk of him, now that I think about it.
