`Road' Passes Through
Familiar Territory
Interesting trend buried in
tribute to Grateful Dead
sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/08/01/DD61139.DTL
Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Critic
Tuesday, August 1,
2000
THE END OF THE ROAD:
Documentary. Directed by Brent
Meeske. (Not rated. 99 minutes.
Plays today at the Castro Theatre,
Friday through Monday at the Red
Vic Movie House and August 9 at the
Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.)
Commemorating the fifth anniversary
of Jerry Garcia's death, ``The End of
the Road,'' a new documentary on the
Grateful Dead, plays tonight at the
Castro and returns Friday for a
four-night run at the Red Vic Movie
House.
Directed by Brent Meeske, ``The End
of the Road'' is a mixed and
amorphous bag: part paean to a fallen
guru, part celebration of the tribal
Deadhead lifestyle and part lament
for a scene that, according to this
film, was at risk of unraveling before
Garcia's death.
Just before Garcia died of heart
failure on Aug. 9, 1995, an event that
wasn't unexpected by those who knew
of his heroin habit, the Dead had
canceled a concert at Deer Creek
Music Center in Noblesville, Ind.
Outraged by the rowdy fringe of
Deadheads who tore down the fence
outside the July 3 concert, the band
fired off a letter decrying the
gate-crashing ``saboteurs'' who
fancied themselves anarchists and
ruined the event for everyone else.
Although that was the first such
cancellation, it wasn't entirely
isolated. The Dead scene, which
became overcrowded with the band's
enormous popularity in the mid-
1980s, was spiraling out of control.
When thousands of ``tour heads''
arrived at various concert sites
without tickets or places to stay, the
local police, pushed to their limits,
often overreacted.
The turn of events building up to the
Deer Creek crisis might have made
for a very strong film, but Meeske
juggles several balls at once. He
spends the first hour of his film
introducing us to a scene that's
already familiar: the stoners, the
crumbling hippies, the baby
Deadheads (``Jerry's kids'') who
considered Garcia a god, the vendors,
the drugs, the gypsylike caravans that
followed the band across the country.
Meeske offers this stuff as if it hadn't
been reported before. In Las Vegas
and Seattle, in Albany, N.Y., and in
Highgate, Vt., we visit and revisit the
circus that took place in parking lots
and open fields outside each concert
venue.
For that first hour, ``The End of the
Road'' just rambles along, never
finding a structure and repeating
itself with similar images and
tripped-out testimony from the family
of 'Heads. Finally, Meeske finds a
focus with the Deer Creek
catastrophe and suggests that, even if
Garcia hadn't died, the scene perhaps
was bound to exhaust itself anyway.
That's the story that hasn't been told
over and over, but it's buried in a
film, albeit good-hearted and
generous, that wants to do too much.
Meeske also omits the fact that a
death threat was made against Garcia
-- prior to the gate crashing -- on the
day of the Deer Creek concert.
Finally, in the film's last stanza,
Meeske focuses on the afternoon
memorial in Golden Gate Park's Polo
Field four days after Garcia's death.
Again, the film seems to take a
different course, as Meeske offers a
loving tribute to the revered guitarist
and cultural figure and shows the
parting words from his band mates
Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart
and Bill Kreutzmann.
A film on Garcia and his legacy is
probably inevitable, but it shouldn't
be shoehorned into the last minutes
of a film that's already overloaded
and bursting at the seams.
-- Advisory: This film contains
nudity, rough language and drug use.
..
E-mail Edward Guthmann at
guthmanne@sfgate.com. |
