It might strike some people as strange that Davis Guggenheim, famous for his Oscar-winning direction of An Inconvenient Truth, decided to make a documentary film about the electric guitar.
It might also seem impossible to focus such a film on only three artists, but in "It Might Get Loud," a filmic history of the rock guitar that spans three generations of music, the seemingly strange and unlikely idea for a movie proves to be a striking and inspiring film.
The film explores the instrumental glory of the rock guitar through the eyes of a powerful trio of rock 'n' roll giants: Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, the Edge of U2 and Jack White of the White Stripes.
Ever since its invention in the early 1930s, the electric guitar has always been popular. While it has gone through many different stages of development and use, it has never faded from the forefront.
Page, the Edge and White represent three different phases of electric guitar development that each of them came to define in their own way.
Page and Led Zeppelin are regarded as the originators of heavy metal music and are still immensely popular to this day. The Edge and U2 drew on the dance and alternative rock music of their time and place, proving to be one of the most popular rock musical acts of all time. Jack White and his sister Meg of the White Stripes, are credited with being one of the strongest forces in the garage rock revival of the early 2000s.
The film's opening is one of its strongest moments: Jack White, shown in rural and barren Tennessee, constructs a rudimentary slide guitar out of two pieces of wood, some nails, a coke bottle and a wire. After constructing it, White turns to the camera and says, "Who says you need to buy a guitar?"
The rest of the film follows in the same vein of White's first statement. The other two artists bring their own unique and captivating perspectives to the table as well.
The Edge is fascinated by the sounds that are produced by different guitars combined with different effects, and is obsessed with making the particular sounds he hears in his mind the only ones that come out of the guitar amplifier.
Page stresses the highly personal aspect of electric guitar playing, explaining how the sound one hears coming from the guitar not only illustrates something intimate about the instrument, but also about the musician himself.
Guggenheim traces the three musicians back to their roots: White's in Tennessee, the Edge's in Dublin and Page's in London. Following each of their careers through a mixture of vintage and interview footage, Guggenheim shows how they came to create their own respective types of rock music.
White, growing up in Detroit in the 1980s, was influenced by the blues of the early 1900s. The Edge's music was strongly influenced by the overwhelming turbulence of 1970s Ireland. Jimmy Page, growing up playing the 1950s British folk-pop genre of skiffle, was finally able to creatively break free once he joined the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin in the 1960s.
Each guitarist has his own opinion about where the guitar, as an instrument, is today. While the Edge is entranced with effects and electronic alterations of the guitar's sound, White is more of a purist, tired of the digital age and its influences on the guitar.
However, the two find common ground in one of the film's great moments, when Page plays "Whole Lotta Love" at the meeting of the three men. Both guitarists are filled with childlike admiration when they hear the legendary guitarist play a classic.
Guggenheim constructs the film using a combination of interviews and archival live performance clips, intermingled with footage of the culminating meeting of the three artists, which, inevitably, turns into a jam session, with all three musicians collaborating in a rendition of The Band's "The Weight".
All in all, Guggenheim has made an overwhelmingly successful film that is not just about the guitar itself. The message of the film, while focused on the guitar and its history, focuses on the importance of finding one's voice, whether it be communicated through song or played across six strings.
It Might Get Loud will be shown today and Saturday at 3 p.m., and on Monday and Wednesday at 5 p.m.