esrosedotblog

END OF AN ERA

I remember.

Anyone my age and ten years younger remembers.

The illuminati: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and many others. In their prime.

Martin Scorcese brought big studio production values to filming the last performance of The Band.

The Last Waltz (1978)

Little did he or they know that this was the twilight for all the stars who appeared.

It is a great music documentary.

There is little to be said about music—words fail—although Bill Wyman's Salon review of the DVD (which is linked above) does a great job of giving some perspective. He gives a lot of background on how the film was made; the only 35mm concert film at the time or, perhaps, ever.

Today, it would be all digital.

I enjoyed it.

Scorcese has a good 'hand' at music films. I watched his recent Dylan TV film No Direction Home (or was it theatrical?).

That is good because I do not much like the killer stuff he does.

These Band guys were sexy and full of real music. They hired Garth Hudson, partly, because he was a thoroughly educated musician. He told his parents he was giving them music lessons; the only way he could justify 'dropping out' of a classical career.

Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko look like Rock Gods. Levon Helm and Richie Manuel, both beautifully shy-off-stage, sizzle when they go 'on'. Amazing to see.

Only standards are played throughout and there is nothing about the origin of the songs, almost all inspired by American history (they are all Canadians except Helm, odd!).

I quibble.

This will be a 5 out of Netflix5.

This would be a good film for the 'young'uns' to see what the original music was like. Now, it is all elevator music. Danko and Manuel are dead at an early age.

Like I said, end of an era. The seventies.