Skip to main content
Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty

Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty

Jeremy Marre

1997 · 1h 15m

Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty

February 22, 19971h 15m
Community grade. The average of the grades people here gave it. No critics, no outside scores.
No grades yet

or to grade, review, and add to your backlog.

Overview

This installment of the Classic Albums series follows the making of two Grateful Dead albums, the fiercely experimental Anthem of the Sun and the understated masterwork American Beauty, which spawned melodic gems like "Sugar Magnolia" and "Ripple." Between the archival scenes and contemporary interviews with band members, the DVD shows a band making seismic inroads in pop music--and five young guys coming to terms with artistry, mortality, and, yes, the pursuit of happiness. There is priceless footage of Neal Cassady driving Ken Kesey's bus and of the Dead, surrounded by martini-sipping hipsters, on Playboy After Dark. The best scenes involve band members talking about specific songs (you will never hear Phil Lesh's "Box of Rain" again without thinking of it as a gift to his dying father) or deconstructing a tune by playing each track separately. Intimate and surprisingly cohesive, Anthem to Beauty is a rare glimpse into how the Dead's magic was made.

Community reviews

No reviews yet

Be the first to review this movie.

More like this