The Complete Monterey Pop Festival- (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
	Rating
	Brand	Image Entertainment
	Type	Blu-ray
	Audience Rating	Unrated
	Release Date	2009-09-22
	Actor	Otis Redding; Jimi Hendrix; Ravi Shankar; Country Joe McDonald; Pete Townshend;
	Director	D.A. Pennebaker;
	Length	78 minutes
	List Price	$69.98
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Categories
Art House & International  DTS  Hendrix, Jimi  Doherty, Denny  Joplin, Janis  Phillips, John  Redding, Otis  Shankar, Ravi  Townshend, Pete  All  Blu-ray Store  Movies & TV on DVD and Blu-ray Disc Trade-In  Spotlight Deals  Blu-Ray  Full Screen  US & CA DVDs: Region 1  2000 & Newer  English
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Description
On a stunning June weekend in 1967 at the height of the so-called "summer of love," the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward - capturing a decade's spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly different cast counting Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, The Who, The Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar. Together with his characteristic verite style, D.A. Pennebaker captured it all, immortalizing those moments this have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar; Jimi Hendrix burning his. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the much comprehensive document of The Monterey International Pop Festival ever produced, featuring all three films of the festival - "Monterey Pop" (1967, 80min.), "Jimi Plays Monterey" (1986, 50min.) and "Shake! Otis At Monterey" (1987, 18min.) - along together with nearly each complete performance filmed by Pennebaker and his crew, the "Outtakes" (1997, 120min.). Stills from Monterey Pop Festival (Click for big picture)
A exclusive message from Lou Adler, an original promoter/producer for the Monterey International Pop Festival: It was the first key Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival. No prerequisite…no precedents. We had no idea what to expect. The question of would people come was answered by mid-week prior to the begin of the festival. They came and kept on coming. A key surprise was the extent of mainstream media coverage. When John Phillips and I arrived at the fairgrounds on the morning of the first day there were camera crews, photographers and journalists from all over the world. Add to this the advent of FM radio; and the following year Rolling Stone Magazine…Rock ‘n’ Roll was here to stay. Monterey gave birth to the first rock charity Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation, which continues to fund worthwhile causes in the names of the artists who appeared at Monterey. Precedents and prerequisites would be set for future concerts and festivals, counting the overall treatment of the artist…Derek Taylor’s handling of the press…Chip Monks’ sound and lights…Pennebaker’s groundbreaking movie “Monterey Pop. The true legacy of The Monterey International Pop Festival is not the crowd size…not the weather…not a violent incident…it is the music. The groundbreaking artists who were introduced (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who) and the “rock royalty” (Simon & Garfunkel, Otis Redding and The Mamas & The Papas) this performed there continue to be revered and continue to impact to this day the music and musicians who came afterwards it happened in Monterey on June 16, 17, and 18, 1967.
Customer Reviews
Regional Codes   2010-04-13
By Samuel de Beer (Western Australia)
Since this one was regional coded for region one only (the first Blu-Ray I got from Amazon with a regional code for Region 1) it was useless to me in Australia. Amazon should mention the regional coding of the Blu-Rays they are selling so that we outside of the US will know when to buy and when not to buy!!!
blown away   2010-02-06
By jlev
i actually got this dvd as a present for my parents for xmas, they asked for it, but i wound up watching it the whole break. i couldn't take my eyes off of it. not only are each of the performances amazing, to see how they shot concerts back then on film was very interesting compared to the big multi-camera video of today. anyway, a must see!!!!
We Need A Summer of Love   2010-01-12
By I. Randolph S. Shiner (Del Mar)
I got disc one from Netflix to play BluRay. This is pure genius on every level. If you read the Criterion Collections essays [...], you'll see that the bulk of the performers were merely experimenting with the new form -- rock and roll -- because most of the performers (Mamas and Papas, Janis Joplin and others) came directly out of, and were influenced heavily by the folk movement, blues and, of course, Jazz. What resulted was just magic on every level. Check the setlist. Check the performers. To see Hendrix perform The Troggs "Wild Thing" and then to light his guitar on fire after making love to it was unbelievable. To understand that before this concert that Hendrix was an unknown who had been riding the chitlin' circuit for years, to get transformed into a guitar God is hard to imagine in light of the reputation that he built for himself in the next three years of his life before it was cut short by addictions to herion. The same was true with Janis Joplin. To see The Who bash apart their instruments was their way of performing destructive art, a concept that I understand intellectually but not emotionally, not that it matters -- this was the world 40 years ago, a world whose relative innocence we could somehow all relate and the time when 50s social mores were out the window and, as of 1967 and this first rock festival, the death of JFK was ever-present on the minds of young people and artists as was the US' growing involvement in Vietnam, and despite President Nixon's attempts to control it all starting in 1968, society was in fact just up for grabs and music, relevant then like never before or since, drove the movement. Maybe it's why Woodstock, in 1969, was such a raging success. Had it not been for Monterey, there would have been no Woodstock. Music was power. The Blu-Ray transfers are, in a word, magnificent. The video is as clear as full of life as you could possibly imagine and the audio, remastered into DTS HD Master Audio is a revelation, and makes the whole experience that much more present, which is to say that you feel like you are there, albeit through the 16mm lenses of the Pennebaker camera crew, who did a wonderful job of filming not only the artists on stage, but those same artists sitting in the audience enjoying the music themselves. There is a shot of Mama Cass after Janis Joplin sings "Ball and Chain" that is just priceless. As always, it's the cameraman's eye for detail like this that make small moments in a film that much more special. I was, however, dismayed to learn that the Grateful Dead's performance was, in fact one of their best performances with everybody dancing and grooving in the aisles. But no video. No audio. I'm going to get the second disc and when finances allow, this will become a treasured piece of my video collection. I was only 6 for the bulk of 1967, but for some reason feel a deep connection to this music. Perhaps it's because the crop of artists that were here in America then, dominating popular music, were so many. What passes for pop music these days is just a travesty of all that these very excellent musicians put into their music, body and soul, those things that are sadly lacking today, when pop music is too often all about celebrity and not art. This is art. Five stars. And if I could give it six, I would do that. All I have to say is: enjoy it.
wish I could have been at the Monterey Pop festival   2009-09-26
By Linda S. Sippel
The CD was excellent and the book that came with it was extremely enlightening and educating. I'm sorry more footage could not have been recorded for this historical event.
first hippie festival   2009-05-13
By Denver B. Cornett (LouisvilleKY)
Great collection of the Flower Power movement. The beginning of Janis, Jimi, almost the end of Otis.