Movie review: It Might Get Loud

by John P. Meyer

It Might Get Loud is a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining rock documentary (the second one to hit local theaters this season). It brings together three legendary guitar wizards on a closed soundstage, giving them an opportunity to shoot the breeze and trade licks while gape-mouthed key grips, sound technicians, and filmmakers gaze on in wonderment.

But it's a long, twisty, three-pronged road getting to this semi-mythical place, because to journey there requires a good deal of backstory on the principals: Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White. This turns out not to be a bad thing, as their stories prove surprisingly compelling. (Surprising, I mean, from the viewpoint of a humble film reviewer whose devotion to rock guitar history is less than zealous.)

The film opens with Jack White on a rural Tennessee farm -- what he's doing there is anyone's guess (proximity to Nashville aside), but he makes himself quite at home. As grazing cows watch curiously, White demonstrates a MacGyver-ish affinity for hand tools by rigging together a coke bottle (the glass kind), some metal guitar strings, and a wooden board to make -- in effect -- an improvised slide guitar. He plugs it in, caresses the strings, and sound blares from the amplifier. (The cows seem concerned.)

Cut to the passenger seat of the limo in which White is being chauffeured to the Hollywood soundstage; it's there that he and his two rock star elders will eventually unlimber their favorite axes and demonstrate their virtuosity.

Says White: "I plan to trick these guys into teaching me all their tricks."

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) fleshes out the middle part of this 97-minute documentary by intercutting between the musical philosophies, work regimens, and formative years of the three players. We get a glimpse under the peat roof of the Irish countryside estate where The Edge sculpts his famously distinctive sound envelopes. We travel back to the southwest Detroit of the 1990s, where (and when) rap was king; as White notes: "it was very uncool to actually play an instrument." And we re-live the Led Zeppelin heyday of Jimmy Page and his fellow band members through archival footage and contemporary visits to the locations where their iconic music was made. (Headley Grange = Stairway to Heaven.)

Coming together at "the summit," White, Page and The Edge share the aesthetic and acoustic virtues of their favorite guitars. (Their beloved instruments come across as old pals, trusted friends.) The film ends with the trio collaborating on The Weight, trading off on the vocals. It's the spectacular culmination of a wondrous musical (and cinematic) experience.

Wow, to have been a fly on that wall. Or a grip on that key. (Whatever that means ...)