'Gimme Danger': Iggy Pop and the Stooges, playing it straight

Fans of Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop might think that "Gimme Danger," Jarmusch's documentary about Pop's band the Stooges, will be a coolly ironic, formally daring homage to what Jarmusch flatly declares, early on, to be the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history.

Instead, "Gimme Danger" is a relatively tame, conventional affair - which is probably to the good. At their prime - and, arguably, they're still in it - the band's musicians were so rough and ready to rumble that any attempt to make a film as risky as they were wouldn't just be redundant, it would look unforgivably lame.

So Jarmusch takes the conventional route. Interviewing Iggy, aka Jim Osterberg, in an "undisclosed location," and catching up with as many surviving band members as he can, the director leads viewers on a detailed, sometimes rambling history of a group that, when it formed in 1967, was decades ahead of its time. Ragged and untutored, the Stooges forged an aggressive, surprisingly sophisticated musical style based as much on the percussive stamping machines in the auto plants of their native Michigan as on the free-form music of Harry Partch and John Cage.

In many ways, "Gimme Danger" hews to a depressingly familiar through-line of rock biography: The scrappy, almost accidental beginning; the sharpening of chops while playing tiny gigs in rec halls and student centers; discovery; success; drugs; dissolution. In the Stooges' case, there are a few doglegs. Although they never hit it nearly as big as they deserved, commercially, since playing Coachella in 2003 they've enjoyed a miraculous rebirth as a still-vital force that's anything but a geezer act.

In large part, that's due to their preternaturally energetic frontman. On the cusp of 70, Iggy is as lithe and limber as ever, and in "Gimme Danger" he emerges as an exceptionally erudite and thoughtful artist as well. He's especially insightful when describing the guitar work of James Williamson, who took the place of founding member David Alexander, who died in 1975, at the age of 27.

Williamson himself has a pretty amazing story line in "Gimme Danger," in which he - well, see for yourself. Let's just stay he has one of the most startling and memorable visual makeovers in the film. As for Iggy, he seems to have grown only healthier and more clear-eyed with age, as he contorts his ropy frame into iconic S-curves that countless imitators have tried and failed to mimic.

Indeed, if "Gimme Danger" is missing anything, it's information on how Iggy settled on his stage persona (including his pseudonym), how he conditioned himself physically to perform his Cirque du Soleil moves every night, and how he takes care of himself. All we get on that front is a diverting anecdote about how he found his first dog collar at a pet shop in Los Angeles.

The most evocative passages of "Gimme Danger" involve wonderfully candid footage of Ann Arbor and Detroit in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the Stooges opened for the MC5. Because of rights disputes, the fabulous MC5 documentary "A True Testimonial" has never made it to DVD or streaming sites. Until it becomes available, "Gimme Danger" is a bracing and atmospheric placeholder.

A bittersweet, elegiac tone can't help but suffuse a film animated by so many anarchic spirits who have since left the planet, but it leaves viewers with the exhilarating, inspiring reassurance that we still have Iggy. To adopt his own highest praise: That's cool.