Made after Lennon and McCartney challenged Palmer — then a classical-music documentarist — to encapsulate the 1968 London music scene in one hour of screen time, the film includes sessions and live outings by a recently Syd-less Pink Floyd, the Who in full destructive mode, Hendrix and the Experience (Noel Redding ’fro alert!), Cream, and Frank Zappa. Palmer’s great innovation was to splice the music to violent, upsetting newsreel footage of the bloody year of 1968, and by doing so to draw attention to rock music’s intimate connections with the exploding Zeitgeist.
Watching a Viet Cong guerrilla getting shot in the head on the streets of Saigon — his brains literally fountaining out of his skull for 17 seconds as he reels on the pavement — to the sounds of “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” is a chastening and harrowing experience I’ve not forgotten in the 30 years since I first saw it. Congratulations to Mods Rockers for making it newly available, and for successfully righting what last year looked like a leaky and listing vessel. | American Cinematheque at the Egyptian and Aero theaters | Through August 1 | www.
americancinematheque.com Previously in Film Made after Lennon and McCartney challenged Palmer — then a classical-music documentarist — to encapsulate the 1968 London music scene in one hour of screen time, the film includes sessions and live outings by a recently Syd-less Pink Floyd, the Who in full destructive mode, Hendrix and the Experience (Noel Redding ’fro alert!), Cream, and Frank Zappa.
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