Albert Maysles, of Gimme Shelter fame, Dies at 88
March 6, 2015 Leave a comment
It’s always sad to lose a great filmmaker, and Albert Maysles was a real force in the world of documentary films. Albert Maysles, along with his brother David, who died in 1987, received numerous awards, including an Emmy and Oscar. They are most well known for “Grey Gardens,” a film about Edith Bouvier and her daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, cousins of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, documenting their lives with mental illness and showed them living a the ruins of what was once a grand mansion.
Gimme Shelter is part concert film, part behind the scenes look into what it took for The Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane to put on a free concert at the Altamont speedway. The Maysles brothers were documenting the concert when the Hell’s Angels (brought in by organizers to provide security) began beating spectators. Mick pleaded from the stage, “Why are we all fighting,” but nothing would stop the escalating violence, which left one concert-goer dead.