Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Featuring performances by popular artists of the 1960s, this concert film highlights the music of the 1967 California festival. Although not all musicians who performed at the Monterey Pop Festival are on film, some of the notable acts include the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Otis Redding, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix's post-performance antics -- lighting a guitar on fire, breaking it and tossing a part into the audience -- are captured.
Monterey Pop is a landmark of direct cinema and the concert film genre — D.A. Pennebaker's multi-camera, intimate verité approach captured the birth of a cultural moment with extraordinary immediacy and visual vitality. Cinematography is well above average: the handheld intimacy, crowd inserts, and legendary close-ups of Hendrix and Otis Redding are iconic. Novelty is high because this was among the first films to define what a concert documentary could be, and its specific voice and era remain singular. As a documentary, 'acting' is really about performer presence — the artists (especially Redding and Hendrix) are electrifying, earning a 3. Plot is minimal by design — it's a curated setlist with no narrative arc, earning a 2. The ending, featuring Hendrix's guitar-burning finale, is genuinely powerful but arrives without much structural build-up, landing at a solid 3.