Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Neil Young turned 60 last year. It was not his easiest year. His father died, a man very dear to Young, the man who really started Young on his long musical career when he gave him an Arthur Godfrey ukulele when he was seven or so. To make a grievous year worse, Young was discovered to have a life threatening cerebral aneurysm and required two surgical procedures to correct it, operations that were sandwiched in between recording sessions for his newest album, "Prairie Wind." Nevertheless, he came back and, surrounded by his longtime favorite musician friends and others, gave a whale of a pair of concerts on August 18 and 19, 2005, at Nashville's fabled Ryman Auditorium, home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. Jonathan Demme and a first rate camera crew shot the show, and this film is the result.

Demme, better known to many for his narrative films, like "The Silence of the Lambs," "Philadelphia" and "Beloved," brings plenty of experience to making performance films as well. In 1984 he collaborated with David Byrne and Talking Heads to make the highly regarded concert film, "Stop Making Sense," and in 1998 he filmed a concert by Brit folk-soft rocker Robyn Hitchcock, "Storefront Hitchcock." He also filmed the late monologist Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" in 1987, and has made short performance films and videos with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. "Heart of Gold" opens with brief, informal interview segments with several of the band members and a few glimpses of Nashville in the vicinity of The Ryman. Then we cut to the chase, the concert itself, which has two segments.

In the first part, Young and his band perform all but one of the 10 numbers on the "Prairie Wind" album; after that, there's a series of Young's past hits. There's just one song written by somebody else, Young's fellow Canadian Ian Tyson's wistful 1963 ballad, "Four Strong Winds," which Young tells the audience was an inspiration to him when he was getting started in music at age 17 or so. The concert is beautiful in every respect. Young still can deliver in his distinctively soulful, mellow, plains roots manner, often shifting up an octave into falsetto, a trademark sound of his. The accompanying musical group and their arrangements are all marvelous.

The cinematography, a team effort led by DP Ellen Kuras ("I Shot Andy Warhol," "Bamboozled," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "No Direction Home - Bob Dylan"), is sublime. Camera angles are imaginative; the shots are simple and held long, never distracting the viewer's attention from the musicians; and the focus is always on the stage, no swoopy audience shots are allowed. The editing, by Andy Keir ("Mandela," Beloved," "The Secret Lives of Dentists," "Off the Map") is just as it should be for a musical performance film: not a single song is interrupted even once. Stage backdrops in lovely colors - muted yellows and ochres – enhance the visual effects.

The concert nicely balanced the new with the old in Young's music. If the fresh songs from "Prairie Wind" don't include any obvious blockbuster hits in the making, the uniform virtuosity with which they are written and delivered indicates that Young's talent is still very much intact. Before a song inspired by his 21 year old daughter, Young says he used to write numbers like this for women his own age when he was young, and "I've still got a few left in me." Maybe I'm starting a new genre now, though, one for "empty nester" songs, he goes on to say.

Young doesn't shy away from nostalgia here. And why should he? At 60, a survivor of a bad year, with a wondrous songbook behind him, it is that time in life for anyone to begin to be reflective. He talks about his much used guitar, which he bought from Grant Boatwright years ago. It once belonged to Hank Williams, who played it on the Ryman stage in his last appearance there in 1951.

For anyone whose formative or defining life experiences were, like mine, sometimes accompanied by Young's music – from his 1968 hit with Buffalo Springfield, "I Am a Child," and "Heart of Gold," in 1972, onward – this concert is sure to be emotionally compelling. For that matter, anyone who appreciates country-pop music, and the images of traditional Americana it evokes, cannot fail to find satisfaction watching this movie, satisfaction we also see in the faces of the players themselves, several of whom have worked with Young for 30 years or more, so glad to be back on stage with each other and with Young, their leader, feeling stronger again and healing.

With Emmylou Harris (vocals, guitar), Ben Keith (band leader, steel guitar), Spooner Oldham (keyboards), Rick Rosas (bass), Grant Boatwright (guitar), Karl T. Himmel and Chad Cromwell (drums), Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns (trumpet), Neil's wife Pegi Young (vocals, guitar), Anthony Crawford (vocals, guitar), Diana Dewitt (vocals), Gary Pigg (vocals), Tom McGinley (tenor sax), Jimmy Sharp (guitar, vocals), Clinton Gregory (fiddle), Larry Cragg (guitar, banjo, trombone, fiddle, vocals, broom), the Fisk University Singers and The Nashville String Machine. My grade: A 10/10.

When Neil Young breaks from singing his own lyrical compositions in Neil Young: Heart of Gold to sing what he calls the most beautiful song ever composed, I knew exactly which Canadian piece it would be, for it was mine too. I listened as a young man to Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" for an entire evening, over and over, as Young did emptying his pockets for a juke box at i6 years old in Calgary. Young had my heart for this performance and a lifetime.

At this point in Jonathan Demme's two days of filming Young and friends at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, weeks before his operation for a brain aneurysm, I also knew this was the best concert film I had seen in recent memory.

Young's singing Tyson's song symbolized the real heart of gold he so obviously has calling someone else's work the best. In this film, however, no one could be better than Young. His voice seems to have lost none of its resonance and feeling since his searching for a heart of gold song made him almost iconic; his stories, such as one about his guitar coming from Hank Williams and then set to song in The Old Guitar, make the only bridges necessary among songs in a concert of songs. When he duets with Emmylou Harris on that song, her delivery seems consciously stoic in order to let Young's understated performance be the gold standard that night.

Demme, who has successes with Stop Making Sense and Storefront Hitchcock, concentrates most of his shots on close-ups of Young, whose low-key style demands the audience get as close as possible. The backgrounds change on the theme of his new album, Prairie Wind, so that a new mural of the southwest is brought across as the songs change.

Concert gold.

OK, I'm a long time Neil fan, and I must admit to a little trepidation upon going to see this film tonight; one of the great things about Neil is that you never know what you're going to get. Prairie Wind turns out to be a beautiful meditation on mortality and age. Age is everywhere in this movie: Neil's never looked older (though he still looks great), Emmy Lou Harris's crystalline beauty is yielding to age (though her smile after the dog tune was still as radiant as ever); Larry Cragg is, well, craggier than ever. Mixed in here are the recent death of Neil's father, the coming of age of his daughter Amber, and his own brush with mortality in the form of a brain aneurysm. Jonathan Demme's work allows the luminosity to shine through undiminished; the ambivalence and intensity contained in some of the songs, especially 'When God Made Me' is amplified by the Demme's fearless framing and ability to stay on a single shot minute after minute. Neil Fans: Look for a few great cameos: Old Black being played by someone who is not Neil; Larry Cragg playing the banjo lick on 'Old Man' (sweet); and even Cortez the Killer makes an appearance (but not inside the Ryman). Notice Pegi's gracious reaction when Neil dedicates a tune to Nicolette Larson. I had the great pleasure to see the film with my young son, and it was moving to see him take it all in. All in all, a really moving movie....I'll be seeing it again.

First, I will say: I recommend seeing the movie without reading anything about it. Just go, sit yourself down, and open your eyes and ears.

Without being heavy-handed the film takes you into the music and the unique energy of a live show. One of my favorite details was seeing a singer in the Fisk University choir getting into the music.

Groups of musicians would step on and off stage: the Fisk University choir (local to Nashville?), a small string orchestra, and a horn section. The backup singers including Emmylou Harris and Pegi Young were fixtures (sorry, don't know the third singer). Some of the best scenes, I thought, were of the backup singers crooning into a single mic. Neil Young crooning with a choir of black voices is an unexpected aural delight.

Though I have long been a fan of Neil Young, this film was the first time I saw what a formidable performer he is. He owns the stage and the hall. He and his band are more precise and polished -- even in their grittiness and "rustiness" -- than I would have expected.

The film is gorgeous to look at. You get to look in detail at the band members -- their clothes, their faces, their hair, one with a bulbous nose. And the pedal steel player's fingers and restrained soulfulness. My heart leapt when I heard the banjo player come in on "Old Man." It was interesting to hear some of the newer Prairie Wind material towards the top of the show. The second song absolutely knocked my socks off. Still, hearing the well-known older songs (Old Man, Heart of Gold) was like encountering an old friend unexpectedly.

I was wondering how the sound quality was achieved. This was a major factor in the film's success: at peak moments the ensemble works up to an incredible momentum and texture. Seeing the chemistry of the band members at these points is exhilarating. Demme captures that very well -- but again, without forcing it on you.

Some of the backdrops for the band were surprisingly cheesy. I have to think there's a whisper of irony in the hearth scenery with the easy chair (and antlers, as I recall).

I thought of Christopher Guest's "A Mighty Wind" more than once. One song in particular about his dog, in which Neil starts snuffling into the mic, could have come straight out of "Mighty Wind."

Make no mistake: Neil Young is a philosopher-king of rock and roll. His band and the dedicated people around him seem essential to what he achieves.

This is a must see for Neil fans! Just shot in August of 2005. Not the Last Waltz but a great concert picture. Might be released as "Heart of Gold" not Prairie Wind. He's added some lb's but still sounds great. A pretty heartfelt performance. Original arrangements for the older tunes. Just close your eyes and go back in time. Great mix and remix. (nothing worse than a concert picture that sounds bad) Demme puts you in the first few rows of the auditorium except for two bizarre shots that remind you "oh yea someone is filming this I'm not at the concert" I believe Neil was having brain surgery a few days after the concert. Kind of a Goodbye to friends and fans if he didn't make it. Fortunately he's fine. You'll want to see this in an auditorium with a big screen and great sound like I did.