![]() A.G.īy 1978, punk rock, new wave and disco were ascendant, and most Sixties rock icons were acts were already coasting on nostalgia. Despite technical mishaps that made some of the original footage unusable, it’s still a stunning, you-are-there testament to the spirit of those days. Bigger benefits like Live Aid would come years later, but this initial melding of music, activism and charity was what set the template - and fortunately, director Saul Swimmer captured all of it for this documentary. The shows were packed with historic moments, like Bob Dylan’s first major public performance since his 1966 motorcycle accident and Harrison breaking out Beatles classics like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Here Comes The Sun” to a live audience for the very first time. On August 1st, 1971, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Ravi Shankar, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Badfinger came together for a pair of shows at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the people of Bangladesh, who were facing a devastating humanitarian crisis due to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the aftermath of a brutal cyclone. It’s rough, raw and endlessly fascinating. focuses less on the musician behind hits like “Paper Planes” and “Galang” and more on the person who found herself in the middle of a maelstrom. Delving into the singer’s past, her political belief and trying to hold on to her identity while the pop-music media machine kicks into high gear (yes, there will be a mention of truffle fries), Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. ![]() And when he finally premiered the end result, it was something completely different than your usual tour bus confessional or highlight reel of in-studio “Eureka! moments and live performances. ![]() So when he pitched the idea of doing a movie about her, the Tamil immigrant-turned-global rap-pop juggernaut said yes. Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam and director Steven Loveridge go way back to their art-school days, long before world tours and boom-boom-boom-take-your-mon-eyyy choruses (both of them wanted to be filmmakers, in fact). The last time we did this was in 2014, and to say that the form has produced a number of classics since then would be an understatement. So in honor of Peter Jackson’s Get Back - a new six-episode look back at the Beatles putting together the album Let It Be even as they were beginning to fall apart - we’ve compiled a list of the 70 greatest music documentaries of all time: the concert films, fly-on-the-wall tour chronicles, punk and hip-hop and jazz time capsules, and career assessments of everyone from Amy Winehouse to the Who that have set the standard and stood the test of time. Not all of them, of course, are created equal. It’s never been easier to make a music documentary these days. And thanks to new access to archives and updated technology, a whole generation of filmmakers have come up learning the art of docu-portraits and genre breakdowns that run the gamut from sub-subgenres to broad stem-to-stern histories of rock, jazz and country-and-western. A number of documentarians saw the advantage of capturing a number of legendary artists and bands in their heyday and/or once-in-a-lifetime performances - partially for posterity, partially for plain old reportage and partially for the second-hand high of it all. ![]() When it comes to historical musical moments, however, there’s nothing like seeing the real thing. The movies have always loved giving actors the chance to play rock star or impersonate an iconic musician/singer, recreating those famous “Eureka!” studio moments and greatest-hits shows for any number of music biopics.
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