Pink Floyd Movies

From the late '60s to the early '70s, Pink Floyd grew from a British experimental rock band exploring the outer edges of the psychedelic experience to one of the world's most popular and revered rock groups. But one of the group's key members didn't last the full ride with the band -- Syd Barrett, the songwriter and singer who sparked the group's early hits and led the charge on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, descended into an introspective madness which was compounded by his ravenous enthusiasm for LSD. The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story is a documentary which examines Pink Floyd's first flash of fame, Barrett's rise and tragic fall, and how the group moved on without him while acknowledging his influence on the album Wish You Were Here. The documentary features rare performance footage, interviews with David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Roger Waters, and memories from a handful of friends and associates of the band. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This live concert performance was recorded in the summer of 1988 at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum and features many of Pink Floyd's classic songs, including "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," "The Dogs of War," "Time," "Wish You Were Here," "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)," "One of These Days," and many more. ~ Forrest Spencer, All Movie Guide

Rock stars who performed in London between 1964 and 1973 (as the title of this documentary indicates) are featured in 104 minutes of stage performances, interspersed with an interview or two. Artists include the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, and Ike and Tina Turner. One of the interesting aspects of this documentary is how quickly it became dated, even at its time of release 8 years after completion. Tina had found the courage to split from battering Ike, and several of the artists had died - but not their music. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Pink Floyd fared better than many other rock ensembles at having themselves translated to the big screen. Their atmospheric, unconventional music certainly helped; but importantly, they chose talented, established filmmakers to helm these projects, such as Alan Parker for their rock opera Pink Floyd - The Wall and here Adrian Maben, a French documentarian with a keen eye, whose elliptical style and sense of control elevates the film above the many glorified home movies produced by Pink Floyd's contemporaries.

Essentially a Pink Floyd concert without an audience, the bulk of the film shows Pink Floyd (surrounded by an unabashedly displayed crew of shirtless cameramen and roadies) playing music at the center of the crumbling Pompeii amphitheater from mid-day until late into the night. Throught the film Maben intercuts or superimposes images of the Pompeii ruins, the surrounding countryside, eroded mosaics and sculptures, and of course the members of Pink Floyd -- indistinguishable from the disheveled technicians around them -- as they perform songs and instrumental pieces from Meddle and their improvisational double-album Ummagumma. Highlights include a re-working of "One of These Days," focused exclusively on drummer Nick Mason (a session from which no other footage was extant), as the other members of the band play in a starfield of studio lights; and the eastern-tinged "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," from Capitol's 1968 Saucerful of Secrets album.

Brief, revealing interviews with the band, in England during the recording of their forthcoming album Dark Side of the Moon, were included by Maben as an afterthought, as were a few informal sequences of the band eating breakfast in the studio cafeteria. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

Shot on location in California and Australia, Crystal Voyager follows American surfer, filmmaker, and inventor George Greenough on his search for the perfect wave. This documentary focuses specifically on Greenough's attempts to build a camera that would capture the majesty of surfing. The film follows Greenough's several abortive attempts to build a camera light enough to sit on a surfboard. The film also discusses Greenough's other innovations, such as the flexible fin which made surfing "in the tube" possible. The film builds to the final, famous 23-minute "Echoes" sequence comprised of footage shot by Greenough from his board. Stunningly majestic, the footage allows the viewer to experience the ocean as never before and occupies the middle ground between early Lumiere films and today's IMAX, all to the music of Pink Floyd. A major critical, popular, and experimental success, Crystal Voyager was lauded at Cannes and by American critics. Greenough went on to work on a number of later surf films including John Milius' Big Wednesday. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide

In this hour-long film, the legendary British rock group, Pink Floyd perform (without an audience) in an ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii. With good sound, good photography and a very scenic setting, this 1972 film is a must for fans of the group and the music they pioneered. By that time, Pink Floyd had recorded four albums: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Ummagumma, Relics, and Meddle. This film is more or less a precursor to the "rock-videos" of a later era, as it has no documentary aspect: it's an all-music movie. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A young man from Germany (Klaus Grunberg) leaves home and travels to Paris. Hooking up with a group of hippies, he is enamored by an American girl (Mimsy Farmer) he meets at a party. The two leave for an island off the coast of Spain and become lovers. He becomes aware she is a heroin user and warns her about the drawbacks of narcotics. The American girl allows him to sleep with her girlfriend and try heroin. After an LSD trip, the girl leaves him and he takes too much of the hallucinogenic drug. Pink Floyd provides the music for this film that decries the excesses of the counterculture. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This short experimental feature follows a young man (Paul Jones, vocalist for the band Manfred Mann) who is picked up by a successful but self-satisfied businessman (Tom Kempinski) while hitchhiking. Bored and exasperated with the businessman's prattle, the young man succumbs to temptation while the mogul checks the engine of his Mercedes Benz, bringing the car's hood crashing down on the man's head. Feeling remorse later on, he sews the businessman's head back onto his body, with the victim seeming no worse for wear. Years later, the young man is working with an architectural firm when he's called upon to join a committee led by a powerful government official (Robert Lloyd). It soon becomes obvious that along with his other duties, the man is asked to account for his actions, which could easily have led to another man's death. The Committee was shot on location at the London School of Economics, and features a musical score by Pink Floyd, which was composed and recorded shortly after Syd Barrett left the group. Influential theatrical rock combo The Crazy World of Arthur Brown also performs in the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two boys learn the hard way about how a marriage falls apart in this independent comedy drama. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is a novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline as he spends more time teaching and less time writing. His wife, Joan (Laura Linney), meanwhile, has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan's two sons -- 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) -- are told that their parents are separating, with Bernard renting a house on the other side of their Park Slope, Brooklyn, neighborhood. As the parents set up a schedule for spending time with their children, Walt and Jesse can hardly imagine that things could get more combative between their folks, but they do, as Joan begins dating Ivan (William Baldwin), Frank's tennis instructor, and Bernard starts sharing the house with Lili (Anna Paquin), one of his students. Meanwhile, the two boys begin taking sides in the battle between their parents, with Walt taking after his father and Frank siding with his mom. Based on writer/director Noah Baumbach's own childhood experiences with his parents' divorce, The Squid and the Whale won prizes for writing and direction at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Zabriskie Point, director Michelangelo Antonioni's only American film, is an unusual, visually stunning examination of youthful rebellion against the Establishment. The film, initially presented in quasi-documentary style, presents a group of college activists discussing key issues of their political agenda. Mark (Mark Frechette) steals an airplane and flies over a desert where he meets Daria (Daria Halprin). She is the pot-smoking secretary to businessman Lee Allen (Rod Taylor), while he is a rebel searching for a worthy cause. In the midst of the arid surroundings, Mark and Daria fall in love. Antonioni's nonrealistic approach to American counterculture myths, his loose and sluggish narrative, and the dialogue (credited to Fred Gardner, Sam Shepard, Tonino Guerra, Clare Peploe, and Antonioni) caused Zabriskie Point to be poorly received when it was first released. The score features songs from Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, The Rolling Stones, John Fahey, The Youngbloods and Patti Page. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide