Whole lotta guitar love

 

Jack White, left, Jimmy Page, center, and The Edge communicate through their music.  (Sony Pictures Classics)

Those who can play great rock guitar, do, like virtuosos Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2 and Jack White of The White Stripes.

 

Jimmy Page, left, and Davis Guggenheim. 

(Sony Pictures Classics)

One of those who can't, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, makes an insightful, rockin' documentary about those who can.  Opening Friday (Sept. 4) in Dallas-Fort Worth and other markets, it's titled "It Might Get Loud."  If there's an unnecessary word in the title, it's "Might."

Guggenheim teamed up with former Vice President Al Gore for the Oscar-winning environmental documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2007.  The personable filmmaker stopped by Dallas recently. 

We talked about Guggenheim's love of guitars and how he managed to get a trio of guitar icons into the same room to discuss their love of music and three generations of rock 'n' roll.

Q:  Your last documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," changed the world in some respects.  This one is going to rock the world.  What made you interested in guitars in general and these three guys (Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White) in particular?

A:  I'm just a fan.  I'm a huge Led Zeppelin fan.  The first album really to shake me was U2's first album ("Boy").  And lately, I've been a huge White Stripes fan.  I love this music, and I've always wanted to know how these guys do this.  They hold this piece of wood and they make this sound.  It's a mystery to me.  I just wanted to figure out how they did it.  That's why I made the documentary.

Q:  You crank up the volume pretty high as these three accomplished musicians play.

A:  I've asked Sony Pictures Classics to put "Please play this as loud as humanly possible."  That's because the movie is called, "It Might Get Loud."  The music -- Led Zeppelin, U2 and The White Stripes -- is better loud.  It wants to rattle you.  

Q:  Do you play, or are you just a fan of the guitar and the music?

A:  I play like a cat uses a litter box.  If people aren't around, I'll circle around and do my business.  I love to hold it and I love to make sounds, but no one should witness me playing guitar.  

Q:  Let's talk about these guys.  Why these three, except that they're pretty much gods?

A:  Some very thoughtful person gave me Rolling Stone's list of the greatest guitar players of all time.  I looked at the list.  After about two minutes I just threw it in the trash can because how do you say that one guy is a seven and one guy is six?  Music is very subjective.  Some music just reaches you and other music doesn't. 

So there's a lot of great guitar players.  We weren't trying to be an encyclopedia.  We weren't trying to get the best three.  What I was looking for was finding three people who would open themselves up to me.  A lot of rock stars like to keep the mystique.  They don't want to tell you their secrets.  That was important to me.  Edge pulls the curtain and shows us the simple way he plays "Elevation."  And you go, "I can't believe he just showed me that."  

Q:  You got terrific insight from all three individually.  But when you got them all together, were you apprehensive?

A:  At the very best I was apprehensive.  Mostly I was panicked.  

We actually plotted a map so they would each enter the studio through different routes so they would never see each other.  So Jimmy and Jack and Edge all met each other for the first time on camera for our movie.  What they talk about and what they play was totally up to them.  

Q:  For me, when Jimmy Page hits "Whole Lotta Love" your movie just goes into another gear.  Did you feel like that as well?

A:  Oh my God, chills went up my back.  Hair was standing on the back of my neck.  That was the first music that they played together.  They were just talking for a couple of hours.  I was, like, "God, I hope they play music."  You could see Jimmy growing sort of uneasy before he played it. 

These guys are less comfortable with words.  They express themselves through this instrument.  So out of nowhere Jimmy just stands up and reaches behind him and he grabs the guitar.  He starts playing "Whole Lotta Love."