|
Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
NEIL
YOUNG TRUNK SHOW Concert films have revealed different aspects of Neil Young’s career over the years. More than a decade ago, Jim Jarmusch’s Year of the Horse focused on Young and his longtime bandmates as road warriors. Young has collaborated on several films, including the all-acoustic Silver and Gold, with the late Larry “L.A.” Johnson, to whom Neil Young Trunk Show is dedicated. In the wake of his father’s death and his own recovery from a serious brain aneurysm, Young staged a formal Nashville tribute to family and his musical roots that was captured by director Jonathan Demme in the glowing Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006). And Young paired nostalgia and politics for CSNY: Déjà Vu two years ago, using his nom de filmmaker Bernard Shakey. Now Young just wants to have fun. A two-time member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a solo artist and as part of Buffalo Springfield), he surrounds himself on stage with his favorite players (including his wife Pegi on back-up vocals) and quirky items, like a bright red phone and a winged keyboard. A painter draws some of the titles of the baker’s dozen of songs onto canvases, while a costumed character dressed as “The Sultan” introduces that song. Filmed during the 2007 Chrome Dreams II tour, Young plays a loose, enthusiastic set that is exuberant for its range and energy. Encircled by acoustic guitars (and a banjo), he solos on quiet songs, like the previously unreleased “Sad Movies,” suitable for performing in a beautiful 1927 movie palace, the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. He blisses out on long guitar excursions (“No Hidden Path” goes for 20 minutes) that are more melodic and focused than most imitative band posturing. Then he goes further to play with the reverb and feedback that has endeared him to grunge rockers. Neil
Young Trunk Show
reeks with the authenticity of a hard-working, grown-up music star who
is the antithesis of American Idol and Top 40 pop, and he does it
his way. Demme plans to work with Young to complete a trilogy, which
will probably be as just as unpredictably freeform as the artist.
Nora Lee Mandel
|
