DVDs & Blu-rays
Monterey Pop Unrated The Criterion Collection $69.95
The Criterion Collection has released a deluxe edition of “Monterey Pop,” the legendary documentary that enshrined California in 1967 as a color burst in a world that was previously black and white. The cinema verite film, directed by D.A. Pennebaker, is an account of the Monterey International Pop Festival, which was a showcase for established acts such as the Who, Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds, and which launched Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix on their great, brief careers. I saw this film for the first time in a 20th anniversary screening, back when the festival and the people in it seemed very far away. The late 1980s was an era of high hair and shoulder pads, so the world of 1967 couldn’t have looked more foreign. But the striking thing about seeing this film today is that at least 75 percent of the people in it could be transplanted to a street in 2017 without looking in any way old-fashioned. And this is not only a matter of style, but of consciousness, of the look in people’s eyes and behind those eyes. So if you see this film, you will inevitably spend a portion of it marveling that all these young people are now 50 years or more older. The movie captures the 1960s and its idea of itself. The venue is relatively small — it’s not Woodstock — and cozy. The sun is shining, and everyone is beautiful and optimistic. John Phillips, who organized the festival, is everywhere, and so is Mama Cass Elliot, sitting in the front row, marveling at Janis Joplin’s rendition of “Ball and Chain.” Somehow it doesn’t ruin the splendor of that moment of appreciation to remember that within a decade, both of these talented young women would be dead. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Elliot became a fixture on evening variety shows and afternoon talk shows, and it was nice to be reminded here of her bright, witty spirit. The Blu-ray set includes two discs of special features. The first contains the full performances of Hendrix and Otis Redding, arranged by Pennebaker as separate films. The other — the better of the two — is a disc of outtakes from the festival, with one or two extra songs by artists featured in the film. Some of the artists actually are better in the outtakes than they are in the film. For example, Simon & Garfunkel’s appearance in the documentary is confined to “Feelin’ Groovy,” but in the outtakes they do “The Sound of Silence.” Throughout, it’s curious to see what music has lasted over the distance of 50 years and what has faded. It’s also a powerful experience to watch the movie as an expression of one generation’s response to the world, as a statement of promise and exuberance — before reality intruded. Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco” sounded corny in 1987. Now it seems rather beautiful.