Guitar legends Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White plug in to discuss craft

From left, Jack White, Jimmy Page and The Edge trade guitar riffs and discuss playing in the documentary "It Might Get Loud."

From left, Jack White, Jimmy Page and The Edge trade guitar riffs and discuss playing in the documentary "It Might Get Loud."

The opening scene of filmmaker Davis Guggenheim's documentary film "It Might Get Loud" shows White Stripes guitarist Jack White building something with hammer and nails on his Franklin, Tenn., farm. A herd of cattle looks on curiously.

White hammers some nails into a 2-by-4, runs a wire between two of the nails and then tightens the wire by shoving a Coke bottle under it. He then plugs the contraption into an amplifier and, voila, he's built a functional one-string electric guitar. He plays a quick solo and then steps back to admire his work.

The scene is a good introduction to Guggenheim's approach toward examining his subjects: White and fellow guitarists Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, and The Edge, of U2. He takes them back to their essential roots and then lets them build their electric-guitar sagas in their own words.

It sounds like a rock fan's dream meeting, but the film goes beyond the premise of "big stars talking shop." While the musicians assembled represent three generations of rock stars, the emphasis throughout the film is on a personal look at how and why these craftsmen bond over their common interest. They are basically answering the question, "How did this instrument take over your life?"

The subjects dissect their own lives in turns, discussing the atmosphere of their childhood worlds, their first casual interests in music and the moments that lit the fires of their guitar obsession. They draw lines from their very different starting points - Page's middle-class upbringing in post-World War II England; The Edge's experience in war-torn Ireland; White's youth growing up poor in Detroit - to the point where playing guitar was the only thing they wanted to do.

Along the way, the guitarists' personalities and philosophies emerge. Sonic scientist The Edge loves nothing more than to alter the guitar's sound with numerous electronic effects. Scrappy White prefers as raw a sound as he can "wrestle" out of an instrument. Page, the contemplative elder statesman, takes a position in-between; he wants a solid tone.

But when the three get together to simply talk about playing guitar, any differences in opinion go unmentioned. They play favorite records for each other, teach each other guitar riffs and end up in a jam session - just three new pals with an afternoon to kill. It's a pleasant sit-down of enthusiasts instead of the ego-fueled "guitar gods summit" that it could have been. It allows the real star of the film - the sound of the electric guitar - to ring out loud and clear.

Rating: 5 stars

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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