Long Strange Trip

Description

Once upon a time, a young bluegrass fan—let’s call him Jerry—decided to start a group. He’d already been playing banjo in a Bay Area jug band, and was now looking for a musical project that would push boundaries a bit more. He enlisted a young folkie guitarist, an avant-garde composer who played bass, a ragged-looking blues-loving rocker, and an R&B drummer; later, an oddball percussionist would join the fray. After these scruffy youngsters began to attract a local following, they decided to change their name—and thanks to a random quote in an exotic tome, they became known as the Grateful Dead. The rest is rock history. You may think you know the long, strange story of the Dead—from Acid-Test house band to hippie troubadours to touring juggernaut—but Amir Bar-Lev’s deep-dive documentary (executive produced by Martin Scorsese) will make even the most diehard fan feel they’ve barely scratched the surface. Using home movies, concert clips, brand new interviews with surviving band and crew members, and never-before-seen footage of the group’s first mind-blowing trip through England, the filmmaker behind The Tillman Story (2010) charts the Dead’s ups and downs. But he also explores the culture that gave birth to their sound, as well as their adventures in live-show experimentation, their misadventures with mind-altering substances, and the phenomenon known as “Deadheads.” And most of all, Long Strange Trip focuses on Jerry Garcia, an artist who lived for the music and eventually found himself becoming a prisoner of fame. It’s both a love letter to the band and its lifer fans, and a peerless glimpse into the mindset of musicians who risked it all to find transcendence in camaraderie and the right improvised chord progression. —David Fear

Film Details