American Masters: Pearl Jam Twenty

In honor of Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary, award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe created a definitive portrait of the seminal band carved from over 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, plus 24 hours of recently shot concert and interview footage.

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Pearl Jam (l to r): Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Matt Cameron.

Courtesy of Danny Clinch

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Pearl Jam (l to r): Mike McCready, Matt Cameron, Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, and Stone Gossard.

Courtesy of Steve Gullick

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Pearl Jam (l to r): Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, and Stone Gossard.

Courtesy of Danny Clinch

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Eddie Vedder on a boat during Pearl Jam’s East Asia tour, 1995.

Courtesy of Duncan Sharp

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(l to r): Matt Cameron and Cameron Crowe in Matt’s home practice studio.

Courtesy of Vinyl Films & Tremolo Productions

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(l to r): Cameron Crowe and Mike McCready in Long Beach.

Courtesy of Vinyl Films & Tremolo Productions

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(l to r): Cameron Crowe and Stone Gossard in Stone’s kitchen.

Courtesy of Vinyl Films & Tremolo Productions

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(l to r): Cameron Crowe and Eddie Vedder at Eddie’s house.

Courtesy of Vinyl Films & Tremolo Productions

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(l to r): Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament in Studio Litho, 2010.

Courtesy of Kevin Shuss

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(l to r): Cameron Crowe and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Italy, July 1993.

Courtesy of Cameron Crowe archives

Hosted by director Taylor Hackford, “Pearl Jam Twenty” chronicles the years leading up to the band’s formation, the chaos that ensued soon after their rise to mega-stardom, their step back from center stage and the creation of a work culture that would sustain them.

Part concert film, part insider hang, part testimonial to the power of music and uncompromising artists, the film celebrates the freedom that allowed Pearl Jam a way to make music without losing sight of what mattered most to them — their fans and the music fans that they themselves had always been.

“Pearl Jam Twenty” features interviews with original band members Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder, drummer Matt Cameron, and friend and Soundgarden singer/guitarist Chris Cornell, as well as archival performance and interview footage of Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Kurt Cobain and Neil Young.

This episode originally aired in 2011.

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