The band’s triumphs and struggles have never been so soulfully rendered on-camera, which makes this essential viewing for diehards. The journey of the Dead mirrors that of ’60s counterculture in miniature: It exploded in San Francisco, skipped town when the Haight got too hot, nearly lost itself in the druggy excess of the ’70s, and enjoyed a reappraisal in the ’80s thanks to the birth of the classic-rock radio format and a new generation anxious to tune in and turn on. The wealth of juicy archival footage ultimately tells two stories. The pool of source material is impressively vast, since the Dead rank high among the most meticulously documented musical acts of all time. Long Strange Trip splits the difference between your typical talking-head documentary and a mix of trippy visuals, career-spanning show footage, and home movies. The “Drums > Space” section tries to get you to dissociate. It’s four-hours long and split up into six chapters, the same way Dead shows were divided into themed sets. In assuming the loose expanse of the Dead’s live shows as its structure, it barrels along just as stoned and free as its subjects. But the new film trumps its predecessors in both method and scope. Countless concert tapes bore witness to the band’s radical, improvised psychedelic blues. Others have tried: 2014’s affecting The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir and 1977’s hokey, self-directed The Grateful Dead Movie both captured pieces of the story. With today’s new Long Strange Trip, producer Martin Scorsese, director Amir Bar-Lev, and Amazon Studios have finally crafted the definitive Grateful Dead documentary.
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