MONTEREY POP

14 January Saturday 16:00 29 January Sunday 18:00

1968, 98’, USA, color
D.A. Pennebaker
English with Turkish subtitles

The Monterey Pop Festival ran for three days in June 1967. For most of the five shows, the arena was jammed to bursting with perhaps as many as 10,000 people. Janis Joplin, who was singing with Big Brother and the Holding Company, pulled out all the stops with a raw, powerful performance that helped establish her as the preeminent female rock singer of her day. The Who climaxed a brilliant set by smashing their equipment at the conclusion of “My Generation”. Jimi Hendrix (in the American debut of the Jimi Hendrix Experience) offered an awesome display of his virtuosity as a guitarist and as a showman, humping his Marshall amplifiers and then setting his Stratocaster ablaze. Another highlight was Ravi Shankar’s meditative afternoon of Indian ragas. And then there was Otis Redding, the dynamic soul man turned in what many present believe was the festival’s best performance. He edited three days and thirty-two acts into 1968's Monterey Pop, a beatific document that set out to catch the look, the feel, and especially the sounds of a seminal moment in American popular culture.