Journey Through the Past

This is an odd film to digest. Fans of Neil Young will appreciate it for its historical value, but it's very mundane in parts. It actually has the feel of Reality TV, but of a mostly wordless variety.

The camera follows a very long-haired Neil Young and his band riding an elevator, it shows them walking around in hallways, it shows them talking with sound-engineers. You see him walking around a junk-yard. You get to see Neil park his car and sit on the front-fender with a woman smoking a cigarette and eating berries and not talking for at least 10 minutes, just staring at the countryside. For some reason you also see Richard Nixon speaking at a Billy Graham Crusade.

Then again, you also see him playing some great early live concerts with Crosby, Stills & Nash, which is reason enough to see this film. But then the film becomes sort of a music-video, showing what appear to be black-robed Klansmen riding horses on the beach, and then what looks like a red-robed Catholic Cardinal riding in a limousine, all of which apparently has zero connection with the rest of the film. It's all edited together in a sort of stream-of-consciousness, which is perhaps the whole point, as that style of narrative was common in the early 70's.

If you can find it, view it for the concert-footage plus an example of Neil's fascination with disjointed imagery which sometimes flows together like a visual non sequitur.

Yes, about 30 years since I've seen this film but some images from that night in Knoxville, Tennessee are crystal clear. My crowd and I had driven the 3.5 hours to Knoxville from Nashville (on other business) and had partied all the way. So, when somebody suggested we go check out this flick, the group was rather pliant.

If memory serves, it opens oddly enough with CSNY doing an in-studio, call-in interview at, I believe, WMC in Nashville. Trippy. Other random images, drawn through the years from a night of robust teenage drug experimentation:

Neil and somebody else sitting on the fender of an old, old car deep in the woods on a summer night right in front of an ancient country bridge. I seem to recall they were drinking moonshine from a jug and the headlights of the car were on, providing the only illumination. Looked like a good way to spend some time.

A close-up of a man's feet walking on a sidewalk, which went on interminably. Then, the film reverses and the feet walk backwards for a long time. THEN, the camera inverts and we see the feet walking backwards and upside down. Not good visual stimulation for anyone under the influence of hallucinogens. I remember we almost cried.

All these years I've wondered what it would be like to see the film again and with a clear mind. If you're a CSNY fan like me, it would be worth it. But, at the time, it was rather hard to stay awake, as I really had no business even attempting to watch anything that required something more than infantile concentration. The film turbocharged our stupor.

Given how brilliant this film could have been, Neil - as Bernard Shaky - is about as exciting as watching Bob Dylan tune a guitar (which doesn't want to be tuned) between songs and, eventually, Mr Dylan in/with/directing one of his own movies.

"Greendale", the DVD of Neil in Ireland presenting his acoustic interpretation of the work/text, shows just how amazing his talent is. However, brilliance aside, being stoned and self-congratulatory about CSN&Y (which at the time wasn't happening) does not forgive this almost illusive, unintelligible, allusion (for so it is) to the South that he hates - "Alabama" is a paeon to this. All must be forgiven when Lynyrd Skynyrd reply most sincerely to his claims.

And yet, one wonders what would have happened had Jimi Hendrix taken Neil and the boys through the same landscape. Even with Stephen Stills as escort, the geography of the "Chitlin' Circuit" would have been alien to say the least. Still, long-haired hippies and weird musicians wasn't the way to go. There is a sense that the whole thing was set up as a battleground that really didn't happen.

Bernard has done much better things than this. Consider, for instance, the soundtrack to "Deadman". Then, perhaps, listen to the soundtrack and watch "Journey Into The Past" at the same time. It's surely better than watching paint dry. Hmmm... almost. 'Course I love Neil and Johnny both. Next!

I saw this movie many years ago at a private studio screening. It was so terribly bad and self-indulgent that I remember well just how horrible it was. In scenes set in a junkyard, Neil Young imparts his "wisdom" in rambling bits of nonsense. Thinking that he had something of import to say showed both his arrogance and his shallowness. I remember being appalled that Carrie Snodgress, freshly off the very good "Diary of a Mad Housewife," thought he was worth spending time with. Even in the hippie era, when people were prone to blathering on about their philosophy of life, this was insufferable. Clearly the studio thought it was pretty bad because it didn't get a theatrical release until two years after I saw it.

I feel obligated to write this review to save people from thinking this is worth watching, which the current 7.1 rating might lead them to believe.

As much as I've always enjoyed the music of Neil Young (starting with his stint in Buffalo Springfield,thru C.S.N.Y & (most)of his solo out put, I found this curious little film a head scratcher. It seems to start out as a documentary about...well...um, Neil Young in various phases of his career. Starting with some blurry video footage of Buffalo Springfield,in a television appearance,thru some sparse footage of Crosby,Stills,Nash & Young (gee...who would have thought?). If this film had pretty much stuck to this premise,it would have made for a satisfactory documentary. The problem is that Neil opted to let his film go totally out of control,careening into some abstract episodes that even most midnight movie fans would have found utterly confusing (no matter how much Marijuana they're behind). Now,don't get me wrong. If you think I'm some typical old fart that can't deal with anything out of the ordinary (I list films such as Eraserhead & El Topo as personal head movie favourites),guess again. Part of the problem of personal vision films is that sometimes the vision is so personal, the only ones that could grasp the message is the artists themselves. I'm not saying 'Journey Through The Past' is unwatchable, it's just that there is a treasure trove of much better stuff out there. It's still worth at least one look (for those who were not born yet & want to get a better idea what the 1960's & 1970's Hippie counter culture was all about). Originally slapped with an R-rating by the MPAA,this film contains much pot smoking & salty language. Pretty tame by today's standards.