Rock-A-Bye
1973 · 49m · Canada
Directed by Jacques Bensimon
Genres: documentary, musical
Tones: humorous, theatrical
Concert footage, studio access, and interviews with performers including the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper, Muddy Waters, and Ronnie Hawkins capture the business and energy of early-1970s rock music.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A straightforward concert doc from '73 that leans hard into access and star power—safe, competent, exactly the kind of rock hagiography that's aged like elevator music, which is probably why no one's talking about it.
Bensimon's structural intelligence here is understated but precise: weaving performance, commerce, and personality into a document that understands rock as both art and industry, positioning the film squarely in the lineage of serious music documentary practice that Wiseman and the Maysles were establishing.
The editing rhythm between studio intimacy and stage electricity carries the whole thing—there's a specific choice in how the cuts tempo-match the music itself, using the performer's own energy to dictate pacing rather than imposing an external timeline, which makes even the business-side interviews feel kinetic.