Neil Young: Heart of Gold

I've seen this film twice and must say that, with Heart of Gold, Jonathan Demme has created the definitive Neil Young concert - this is as good as Neil Young gets and Demme has captured him perfectly. Neil Young fans and those who are turned on to him by this film will probably want to buy the DVD when it comes out. But see it in a theater if you can - production values are extremely high (this is no amateurish production), camera work (particularly the close up camera work) is among the best I have ever seen, the editing is superb, and the content is as good as it gets for a film of this genre.

Although I've been a Demme fan for years, I was lukewarm about Neil Young before seeing this film - count me as a big Neil Young fan now too. Jonathan, if you are reading this - any chance you could capture Stephen Stills one of these days?

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.

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.

I am a Neil Young fan for over 25 years. I love most of his work. I hate some of it. Neil likes to experiment. He is never afraid of failure. This boils down to 'You can't please everybody'. I have attended about 8 of his concerts plus his previous movie 'Rust Never Sleeps'. I took my son on his 20th birthday to the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood to see this movie. I also took my my wife, my 11 year-old daughter, and my son's 18 year-old girlfriend. Everyone of us loved the movie. The theatre was completely silent during the entire program. The lady next to me actually clapped after several songs. It was easy to forget we were at a movie. It felt so much like a live performance, except the acoustics were better and we could see every performer. Maybe I can identify with many of the songs he sang. My son has left home and come back. My father is in the early stages of 'Dementia'. This made the performance very personal for me. I had to remind myself that Neil was performing for millions of fans, not just myself. The movie is beautiful in its simplicity. It does not rely on sets or props or special effects. Just a bunch of very talented musicians. The lighting and camera work truly complete the mood. The day after we saw the movie, my 11 year-old daughter told me she understood the song Neil sang about his daughter. She understood the line 'I miss you, but I won't hold you down'. Yes, I loved this movie. I only wished I was at the Ryman during filming. Go see this movie. Take your wives, your kids, your friends, and anyone else you can think of.

Hard for me to filter out my decades-long love for this man and his music from my comments.

As a "Concert-Movie"--and I've seen most of them going back to the early 1970s-- it might be the best I have ever seen.

I'm absolutely planning to see it again, maybe more than once. Demme's touch allowing the musicians/the music/the locale to tell the stories was masterful; I felt the editing might have been technically a bit choppy but as "grit/context" it was excellent (kind of "Last Waltz" like but a bit smoother).

But the sub-text that will get to some but not all Neil Young fans (I feel all Neil fans will flat-out absolutely love this movie): this great great man and musician is clearly reflecting on his life in his music, in his banter and in his eyes.

The aneurysm was an unbelievable muse, both in looking back and (hopefully,gently) looking forward. He like me (I'm about his age)--and this is why I suspect the degree of connection to this film might be somewhat related to age--knows most is behind, we hope there's still stuff ahead. This was in there somewhere in each of the film's songs.

The close-ups of everyone are off-putting at first and then I came to treasure the "intimacy".

And never before have I witnessed a film's content-- the great songs that made the final cut--so consistently compatible with this awesome "old man, taking a look at (his) life", surrounded by his "friends" (those that are left), in words, music and atmosphere.

Music lovers: don't miss this movie. Great job by Mr. Demme!!!