It’s pretty brilliant when you think about the choices in “It Might Get Loud,” because the three subjects being followed in this guitar-centric documentary couldn’t be more disparate.

There’s the clean, ringing sounds from The Edge, who adores his playground of effects that give him his “voice” and is even quite transparent as a person – he’s quietly funny, thoughtful and studious and meticulous about his craft.

Then there is Jack White, the purist who has no use for technology and “likes to pick a fight” with his guitar – which explains why his instrument was often smudged with blood after a fervent White Stripes performance.

And, looking every bit the elder statesman that he is with his sweep of silver hair, stands Jimmy Page, the ‘60s guitar god, the guy who co-wrote “Stairway to Heaven” and tells the camera that his approach to his roaring, passionate sound was “all about the dynamics – whisper to the thunder.”

This trio of axe-men convened at a soundstage on Jan. 23, 2008, to swap guitar techniques, tell stories about their influences and jam on one nifty round-robin of slide guitar (they also perform a song at the end of the film, but no need to spoil the surprise).

Though some might gripe that the footage of Page, The Edge and White talking and playing together is too meager, you need to know all of the parts before you can understand and appreciate the sum.

Director Davis Guggenheim, who also helmed “An Inconvenient Truth,” and, we’re sorry to report, the pilot of the modernized “Melrose Place,” does a fine job here of interspersing the summit meeting with footage of each man not only in his habitat, but in places that are meaningful to the history of his band.

The Edge gives a tour of the school where he found the flyer tacked to a bulletin board, the one placed there by U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr., seeking a guitarist.

Page (a co-producer of the doc) returns to the storied Headley Grange, in the English countryside, and explains how the mics were placed along the staircase banister for the recording of “When the Levee Breaks.”

And White is frequently shown listening to and playing along with old blues records, the foundation of his sound that, along with a general fondness for all roots music, undoubtedly inspired his collaboration with Loretta Lynn a few years ago.

Most exciting, though, is the see-sawing footage of past and present, or, in Page’s case, present and past.

The Edge stands in a grotty kitchen and plays a cassette tape of the first guitar tracks from “Where the Streets Have No Name” (though who can believe him when he says, “I have no idea what’s on these tapes” before popping it in?), and 30 seconds later, we’re transported to the song being performed on the last U2 tour, in front of a stadium full of fist-thrusting fans.

Page, who looks happier than he ever did in Led Zeppelin, humorously plays air guitar – yes, even Jimmy Page plays air guitar – to some of his favorite old blues records, before the film cuts to Zep onstage in their heyday, Page’s dark mop of hair concealing his face as his hands actually blur from his swift movement.

And, White Stripes fans will surely be amused at some footage of Jack and Meg White playing for the stately older gentlemen at the Chelsea Pension Home. At least they kept it acoustic, with Meg playing with brushes, before cutting to the Stripes live onstage, raw and screaming. That might have given a few of the poor guys a heart attack.

“It Might Get Loud” is necessary viewing for any music fan – especially those who like to dive beneath the surface a bit and actually care how The Edge constructed the monster riff from “Get On Your Boots” (not so massive when you hear it without his layering of effects).

But it’s a scene in which Page rips out the intro to “Whole Lotta Love” for the guys that epitomizes everything: as Page plays, White moves his guitar off his lap, almost as if it isn’t worthy of being in the same room with such greatness and The Edge stands up and walks over for a closer view, studying Page’s fingering like a kid watching his first instructional guitar video.

It is a moment of deserved reverence in a movie that celebrates the instrument that is the connective tissue in music.

“It Might Get Loud” is currently playing at Westhampton.

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