The Concert for Bangladesh (1972)

Director:

Saul Swimmer

Release Date:

7 June 1972 (Sweden)

Genre:

Documentary | History | Music

Tagline:

The Greatest Concert of the Decade! Now you can see it and hear it...as if you were there !

Plot:

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh.

Plot Keywords:

Concert | Bangladesh | Musician | Unicef | Benefit

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

George Harrison	...	Himself
Bob Dylan	...	Himself
Ravi Shankar	...	Himself
Ringo Starr	...	Himself
Eric Clapton	...	Himself
Leon Russell	...	Himself
Billy Preston	...	Himself
Klaus Voormann	...	Himself
Jim Keltner	...	Himself
Pete Ham	...	Himself
Tom Evans	...	Himself
Mike Gibbins	...	Himself
Joey Molland	...	Himself
Jesse Ed Davis	...	Himself
Jim Horn	...	Himself

Runtime:

USA:103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden - 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Apple Corps

Trivia:

More of the proceeds from the concert were frozen by the Internal Revenue Service than were given to UNICEF, pending a tax investigation. It took nearly ten years to release the remainder to UNICEF, by which time the crisis in Bangladesh had long passed.

Goofs:

Continuity: In between 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Just Like a Woman', Bob Dylan attaches his capo to the second fret of his guitar. George Harrison then leans over to speak to Leon Russell, but immediately in the next shot, Dylan's guitar is capoed on the fourth fret and George is back in his regular position. (This is most likely due to the deletion of another Dylan song, 'Mr. Tambourine Man', which was played with a capo on the 2nd fret and is included on the film's soundtrack album.)

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Buck Henry/Leon Redbone (#3.6)" (1977)

a great concert but a failed film

The concert for Bangladesh was one of the most important concerts in the history of the rock music. Not only was it a gathering of first rate stars like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton or Ravi Shankar, but it signaled the start of the political involvement of musicians through the commercial power of their music in the benefit of big humanitarian causes. The example of Harrison was followed by scores of other musicians, and many events from the concerts for Etiopia in the 80s until the recent world wide events for ecological causes find their origins back there.

For these reasons a film to describe how this concert was organized, how artists responded and why some (including Paul McCartney and John Lennon) did not respond, and also maybe some of the eventful history of the concert film and disk in the years that followed the concert would be very interesting. It is not this film. We scarcely get maybe two minutes of background and the rest is the concert itself. Yes, there is a lot of splendid music going on including probably the best version of 'When the guitar gently weeps ...' ever done with Harrison and Clapton, but overall the filming of the concert is not very inspired, and the sound caption is mediocre. The real documentary about this moment in the history of rock and rock artists engagement in important causes is still to be made, making use of material from this film.