>>REVIEW
NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD
DIRECTED BY Jonathan Demme
Opens Friday, March 31
Uptown Screen
Ever find yourself frozen, crouched in dim light, flipping through a dust-covered, faded family photo album you suddenly discovered while rummaging through old boxes for the mixtape a friend gave you in high school?
Well, this film is the soundtrack to that moment in your life.
The passion of music and cinema collide in Neil Young: Heart of Gold, Jonathan Demme’s (The Agronomist, The Silence of the Lambs) altruistic film, in which two nights of gentle wisdom and near sonic perfection unite with impassioned photography to document an immortal plea from the man with a holy frown.
In spring 2005, Canada’s single greatest export, Neil Young, was diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain aneurysm. He had lost his father only a few months prior. With only weeks to go until the surgery required to save his life, Young did what any great artist would – he harnessed the intense feelings of nostalgia and mortality coursing through his veins into an album, Prairie Winds. Literally written and recorded in the days leading up to his surgery (he was recording the night before surgery), every note of Prairie Wind drips with bittersweet intensity.
Accordingly so, Neil Young: Heart of Gold is not just another concert film. Longtime friend and collaborator, Demme, is far too talented to allow that. This film is 104 minutes of emotional reflection in a darkened theatre with Young and Demme standing in the shadows just beyond your field of vision, not just guiding, but provoking you. It’s a film that is a thousand different stories to a thousand different people.
Seven static cameras documented Young and his cast of musicians performing Prairie Wind in its entirety, and other carefully selected songs to sold-out crowds at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee (though to mention the audience is irrelevant – Demme never once offers us a glimpse of anything other than the drama unfolding on the stage). Young and his middle-aged compatriots are all characters in a mesmerizing story and it is to Demme’s credit that we view them as such. Compiling the best moments of two skilfully photographed nights into one timeless "dream" concert leaves the viewers of the film feeling grateful for having experienced something far more personal and moving than anything the actual concert crowd could have.
Like late-night wine with friends, this film will fill you with the desire to hug the ones you love. |
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