1991: The Year Punk Broke

Sometimes it takes a little serendipity for a rock documentary to become something special. While the filmmakers behind classics such as Don’t Look Back, Woodstock, and Gimme Shelter deserve credit for choosing their subjects wisely, they couldn’t have predicted their excellent timing. The same can be said of Dave Markey’s 1991: The Year That Punk Broke, an occasionally amateurish, frequently riveting film about Sonic Youth’s tour of European rock festivals in August 1991. As the band’s Thurston Moore admits during a panel discussion included in the extras for the film’s new DVD edition, 1991 was essentially a “home movie” shot on Super 8, and not intended to become an actual motion picture. It was only after one of Sonic Youth’s supporting acts—a scruffy, largely unheralded Seattle trio named Nirvana—became a sensation within weeks of playing those shows that Markey’s ragtag collection of performance footage and backstage goofiness suddenly became bankable.