Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

The Grateful Dead Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

The Dead captured live.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 16, 2011

There are numerous acts whose live shows never match the pristine magnificence of their studio recordings, but you’d be hard pressed to find a Deadhead who wouldn’t argue that the only way to really experience The Grateful Dead was by attending one of their shows. The Dead were legendary concert performers, ones who regularly turned in hugely entertaining evenings of music, usually liberally sprinkled with extended jam sessions that could build to near ecstatic levels for both the players and audience alike. It’s sort of sad, then, that there’s so precious little footage of the band performing live, something that The Grateful Dead Movie sought to ameliorate by offering an edited version of five nights of performances at the iconic Winterland Ballroom in October of 1974. This was a prime performance era for the band and The Grateful Dead Movie captures not just some wonderfully energetic concretizing, but perhaps just as importantly, the band’s almost mesmeric power over its audiences. Though Deadheads aren’t exactly known for their restraint with regard to various herbal and quasi-pharmaceutical enhancements, which may account at least in part for their collective St. Vitus’ Dances in the aisles, it’s also obvious that even without any “extracurricular” aid from any ingested products, the fans are uniquely in love with The Grateful Dead, and that is something that The Grateful Dead Movie makes completely clear.

It's only fitting that The Grateful Dead Movie gets off to a quasi-hallucinogenic start, with a fabulous introductory animated tour de force by Gary Gutierrez which is kind of a Peter Max on steroids trip through a skeletal Uncle Sam's Id. It lends the film its very peculiar flavor right off the bat, letting us know that is not going to be a standard concert documentary. That feeling is only increased once we actually get to the concert portion of the film (which in fact doesn't happen until almost eight minutes in), when almost immediately the camera doesn't focus on the expected (that would be the Rock Gods on stage), but starts darting out into the audience, capturing a variety of people in various states of delerium, dancing and gesticulating wildly to the band's incredibly unique, genre bending sound.

The Grateful Dead Movie in fact repeatedly defies expectations, and in some cases that may drive the band's most fervent fans a little crazy. The film, while attempting to document the halcyon days of the group, seems less interested in uninterrupted accounts of the performers than it does in documenting the whole Deadhead experience. That means we get everything from a nice segment featuring the roadies prepping both the stage and the instruments to some quite funny interchanges between fans waiting outside for the show to begin. One of these is downright hilarious, as some fan is up in arms that everything is being filmed (including his interchange with another fan trying to get him to calm down). While this may prevent those with a pure love of the music from getting their fill, it perhaps more importantly gives an outside viewer a more comprehensive idea of what the whole lunatic experience of a Dead concert must have been like back in the day.

Despite this, there is still abundant, and often fantastic, music to be heard, even if it is sometimes in snippets. This concert marked the end of the Dead's iconic Wall of Sound sound design, which the excellent liner notes to this release describe as "a fabulous albatross threatening to destroy them." The pure mass of sonic energy emanating from these unassuming looking musicians is a testament to the gentle ferocity the audience at the time must have felt, and which The Grateful Dead Movie captures quite artfully. Though not all of these songs are presented in their entirety, the set list for the film includes:

• U.S. Blues
• One More Saturday Night
• Goin' Down the Road
• Feeling Bad
• Truckin'
• Eyes of the World
• Sugar Magnolia
• Playing in the Band
• Stella Blue
• Casey Jones
• Morning Dew
• Johnny B. Goode
• It Must Have Been

The Grateful Dead Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There's good news and bad news with regard to The Grateful Dead Movie's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The transfer was culled from the original 35mm negative, scanned by San Francisco HD transferring facility Retina on a Thompson Spirit Datacine in 1080p/23.98psf. The original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio was masked for, but this HD transfer was slightly cropped according to the liner notes in order to conceal flaws in the side edges printed in the optical blowup from 16mm original camera negatives to the 35mm CRI negative that was used to make the film's theatrical release prints. The full height of the original frame is preserved, and according to the liner notes, Retina employed no grain or noise reduction during the scan in order to avoid motion artifacts later in the mastering process. The film was also color corrected with the DaVinci 2K Plus system. Though all of this tech-speak might lead you to believe The Grateful Dead Movie looks as fantastic as any contemporary HD-filmed concert release, that's simply not the case, and expectations must be adjusted accordingly. The simple fact is that video quality is at least somewhat sharper than we've seen it before, especially with regard to the Gutierrez animated sequences, which really pop magnificently, at least considering their age. In terms of the concert footage, things are considerably spottier. Grain still runs rampant, and the overall look is fuzzy, often to the point of complete blurriness in some of the midrange and farrange shots of both the band and the audience. Saturation is moderately more intense than previously, but there's still a somewhat pallid look to everything here. A lot of this is due not just to the source elements, but obviously to the filming conditions themselves, which were often in less than ideal light, and that means there's fairly consistent crush in this transfer (despite Retina's attempts to overcome a lack of shadow detail), though actual black levels are quite good throughout the film. If you don't come to The Grateful Dead Movie with unrealistic expectations, chances are you won't be too horribly disappointed, even if similarly you're not too overwhelmingly excited either.

The Grateful Dead Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Despite what you may have read online, there are actually two DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes on this Blu-ray, both at 96kHz/24-bit, one of the original theatrical release mix and another redone specifically for this Blu-ray (though according to the liner notes, the theatrical release's 5.1 mix was actually futzed with for the Blu-ray release in order to cull the LFE channel from the existing masters). The all new 5.1 mix for the Blu-ray (as opposed to the original theatrical mix slightly repurposed to 5.1 for this release) was culled from the 16 track master analog tapes. I toggled between these two repeatedly throughout the film and frankly couldn't hear a whole lot of difference, though in a couple of the performance sequences, it did seem like the band was mixed more discretely so that individual instruments were a bit clearer. However, the fact that we're given three lossless tracks here (the other is an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down) is fantastic news, though curmudgeons will probably lament the fact that no actual uninterrupted performances are included here, since the documentary is as much about the audience as it is the band. Fidelity is incredible, with sparkling clear audio throughout all ranges. The audience noise never overpowers the band, and while occasionally vocals aren't especially prominent, the band itself sounds fantastic. I seriously doubt anyone is going to complain about either of the 5.1 tracks for any technical reason. All three audio options offer superb dynamic range, with especially excellent low end on the two DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes.

The Grateful Dead Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary. The only supplement on the Blu-ray disc is a nice commentary by Susan Crutcher, Supervising Editor, John Nutt, Editor, and Frank Zamacona, who produced the mini-documentaries on the included DVD. Crutcher and Nutt are especially entertaining talking about the rigors of trying to edit together a feature which was filmed over five nights when such simple things as the band changing clothes presented editing challenges.

All of the supplemental material (aside from the Commentary) is on the accompanying DVD. The DVD features incredibly slow animated menus which might be OK for the herbally enhanced, but which move along at the speed of molasses for those of us firmly ensconced in the non-herbal world.

• Bonus Songs (8:49, 7:38 includes: Uncle John's Band (8:49), Sugaree (7:38), The Other One (16:42), Scarlet Begonias (13:47), China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider (17:03), Dark Star (16:42), and Weather Report Suite (19:49). Almost all of these feature fantastic extended jam sessions, and they all feature optional Visible Lyrics.
• Documentaries include:
  A Look Back (28:21) features great archival footage featuring such people as Bill Graham, as well as the band itself looking back on how they got started. There's more contemporary interview footage included as well.
  Making of the Animation (16:57) is a great look at Gary Gutierrez's contributions to the film.
  Making of the DVD (14:41) is a retrospective looking at assembling all of the elements to put out the film and supplements for home video.
• Mars Hotel Spot (00:34) features a brief promo animation sequence with three different sound mixes.
• Multi-Track/Camera Demo (5:53) is a kind of cool deconstruction allowing fans to hear discrete channels of the 16 track source elements for The Grateful Dead Movie and how a final mix was achieved.
• Photo Gallery

The Grateful Dead Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Grateful Dead Movie isn't your typical concert film, and that's by design, quite a bit of it due to co-director Jerry Garcia, who wanted to capture the entire zeitgeist of a Dead event, not just the music. As a result, this is one of the more fascinating filmic time capsules of a band, its fans, and its era, one that presents everything in a greater context than just watching a band traipse through a set of songs. While a great deal of care has been lavished on the video and audio upgrade for this Blu-ray release, there's only so much that could be done with the image quality here, so don't expect miracles. With that said, though, this release is easily Highly recommended.