Review: ‘It Might Get Loud’

Three generations of rock guitar virtuosos; Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2, and Jack White of The White Stripes sat down together in January of 2008 to discuss their careers, influences and techniques. Documentarian Davis Guggenheim brought his cameras to this summit and the result is IT MIGHT GET LOUD, an affectionate documentary that the many devotees of these performers will savor. You don’t have to be a rock scholar to enjoy this examination of three gifted artists and appreciate their insightful assessments about their own creativity and musical impulse. IT MIGHT GET LOUD is more about the character of these musicians than the music itself but it’s careful not to leave out an occasional impromptu jam.

The Edge demonstrates his techniques while occasionally talking about his Irish roots and how he was musically inspired by his country’s political violence. He revisits the Dublin high school where he met his U2 bandmates, digs up an old box of unlabeled demo tapes, and confesses that the secret to his sound is technology. There is also footage of an early U2 video and seeing a big-haired spastic teenage Bono is a hoot. White, the baby of the group (he’s 34 but looks younger) seems to be truly in awe of his heroes, asking them sharp questions and grinning when Page starts to play. An excursion to White’s Tennessee home reveals the origins of his fundamental rock and blues style. But for sheer presence, it’s 64 year old Page who is the real draw of IT MIGHT GET LOUD. The most private of the three, Page also is the most well-known, having spent decades in the spotlight as a busy studio musician, member of The Yardbirds, and founder of Led Zeppelin. It’s a testament to Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for making Al Gore look charismatic in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, that the notoriously reclusive Page opens up as much as he does. He invites the filmmaker to his London home to show him his record collection and lets himself be filmed strumming riffs from Zeppelin classics in his studio. Guggenheim skillfully weaves in archival footage including an eye-opening TV appearance by Page at age 12!.

IT MIGHT GET LOUD contains a lot of footage of the electric guitar itself. Close-ups abound of the instrument being played, made, strung, tuned, polished, and bled on. If it sounds fetishistic it is, but I appreciated how Guggenheim sometimes uses these scenes as an educational tool to demonstrate the way different guitars achieve their distinctive sounds. Guggenheim could have done more to establish exactly who these three guys are and why they are so important. Perhaps their history has been well-chronicled but going in to IT MIGHT GET LOUD I was completely unfamiliar with Black and couldn’t name the U2’s guitarist in a bar bet. Guggenheim wisely avoids the cliches of the familiar “Behind the Music�-style format (there are no talking heads other than the three subjects), and instead concentrates his spotlight on the musicians and lets them explain and illustrate their relevance in the history of Rock and Roll.