Neil Young Heart of Gold

There are certain musician/singers whose voices I never tire of. It's the special quality of their voice and a unique musical style that sets them apart. No one else can sound like them. Van Morrison, Prince, Joe Cocker, the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones...and Neil Young. Director Jonathan Demme did a damn good job filming this wonderfully romantic tribute to just such a musician -- especially since it was clearly made on the fly as a just-in-case last rite and pre-mortem memorial before Neil Young's impending brain surgery. I must confess that, in the anonymity of the dark theatre, I wept tears of profound sorrow and bittersweet nostalgia as Neil took us on a meditative journey from his early roots to the present. The cynicism of an earlier time morphed into circumspection, reminding us of passions left behind, or forgotten or tempered through experience. The criticism of this film as a boomer sapfest and a sellout is grossly misguided and small-minded. This is a film about a man reviewing his life as he faces the possibility of his death. It is poignant beyond words, and poignancy is the loveliest of emotions.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!