The Concert for Bangladesh (film)

The Concert for Bangladesh is a film directed by Saul Swimmer and released in 1972. The film documents the two benefit concerts that were organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar to raise funds for refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War, and were held on Sunday,August 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. As well as notable performances from Harrison and Shankar, the film includes main performer contributions from Harrisons fellow exBeatle Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Leon Russell, and a surprise walkon from Bob Dylan. Other contributing musicians include Ali Akbar Khan, Eric Clapton, the band Badfinger, Klaus Voormann, Jesse Ed Davis, Jim Horn and Jim Keltner.

Saul Swimmers Concert for Bangladesh documentary combined footage from both of the Madison Square Garden shows held onAugust 1971, using George Harrisons preference of the performances of the songs. Harrison later explained that much of the concert footage was unusable, as a camera on the righthand side of the venue was faulty and out of focus throughout, while the one opposite, down the left side, had cables hanging down in front of it. The compromised quality would result in some brutal edits in the released movie Eric Clapton, for instance, appears to change jackets and guitar partway through a song Leon Russells medley in particular. In an interview accompanying the 2005 DVD release of the film, Swimmer would cite the audio syncing and the framebyframe conversion to 70mm format from the original 16mm as other challenging, labourintensive tasks. With work almost completed on the Concert for Bangladesh live album, Harrison is said to have begun editing the footage onSeptember at some stage during the next few months, he was joined in this lengthy process by Bob Dylan.A clip of Harrisons performance of My Sweet Lord was previewed during his appearance on ABCTVs The Dick Cavett Show onNovember, but the movie would not be ready for release until the following spring. ........

Source: Wikipedia