"The Grateful Dead Movie" is undoubtedly one of the finest music documentaries of the past 30 years, but the reason for its excellence is unique:  It is one of only a handful of films made by a musician.  Though film editor Susan Crutcher did a masterful job, she confirms that, cut by cut, frame by frame, this is Jerry Garcia's vision of the Grateful Dead.

Garcia had been bitten by the film bug at the age of 7, and in his late teens even made some charming silent 8 mm. films with his film student first wife.  So when the Grateful Dead concluded late in the summer of 1974 that their sound system, the legendary "Wall of Sound," was simply too expensive, and that a hiatus in touring was called for - there
was even the possibility that it was indeed the end of the band - Garcia got an idea.

The band would come to a finale with five shows at their home venue, San Francisco's Winterland, and Garcia and his cohort Ron Rakow (President of Grateful Dead Records), decided to hire film crews and document the week.  In the nature of ideas in the Grateful Dead, the project fed on high intellect and unfettered imagination, and grew beyond anyone's wildest imaginings.

In the weeks before the October 1974 shows, they found Leon Gast (later to win an Oscar for "When We Were Kings") to direct, and assembled a shooting team that included such distinguished photographers as Al Maysles ("Gimme Shelter"), David Myers ("THX 1138" and "Zoot Suit"), Jon Else ("The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb"), Stephen Lighthill ("Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey").  With Stanford film school graduate Ed Washington as on-site production manager (and later
Producer), they followed in the band's musical footsteps and improvised a film shoot that captured the week.

Over the next two and a half years, Garcia and Crutcher slowly crafted a movie out of an extraordinary pile of film.  They engaged Gary Gutierrez ("The Right Stuff," "Top Gun") to create an animated opening sequence which the San Francisco "Chronicle" would later declare Oscar worthy as a short.  And they deftly combined music footage and interviews of crew and audience to create a fully rounded portrait.

Over the years, it has become a VHS staple, but the upcoming DVD will treat it far better.  Because it was restored in High Definition, Gutierrez' animation - and all the visuals - will have a new snap.  The DVD will also allow for 90 minutes of unused performance footage and an extraordinary opportunity:  the ability to choose among three sound mixes; normal home stereo, 5.1 surround sound, and Garcia's own theater mix.

The Grateful Dead was an American treasure of musical forms and performance as well as a genuinely extraordinary subculture  - a family, if you will - bonded together by that music.  "The Grateful Dead Movie" is their quintessential visual representation.

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