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Vol. I
No. 10 Pearls and Nuggets in a Sea
of Madness Artistic License
Diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain aneurysm last spring, shortly after the death of his father (whom he dedicated the film to), Young flew down to Nashville and wrote and recorded the songs for Prairie Wind in the four days before his surgery. Post-op, he picked up the phone and called Jonathan Demme informing him that he was taking a year off and I'd like to make a movie. ("That's the kind of vacation I like to take too," Demme claimed at Sundance.) Recorded at the first public performances of Prairie Wind, August 18 and 19 at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium (previous home of the Grand Ole Opry), Neil Young: Heart of Gold sums up this modern Americana folklore in brief interviews with Young and a band of old reliable, including Spooner Oldham, Grant Boatwright, and Ben Keith. Melancholic and preachy, Prairie Wind (Read my review in archives) unfolds as a testament: Almost all the songs default to the first-person singular, and judging by Young's simple, straightforward intros, he means them to be understood as such.
Training eight Super-16 cameras and a Steadicam on the show — and none on the audience — Demme reflects the simplicity of the songs' acoustic country arrangements in a dreamy dictionary of slow dissolves and close-ups. DP Ellen Kuras (Cinematographer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home) gets her shots (Young and Emmylou Harris spot lit center stage, the auditorium a sea of shadow before them), but the stitching is befittingly ragged. Many odd angles such as close up side shots of Neil shows a departure from the norm. Demme doesn't follow the concert film clichés of always cutting to the musicians who are spot lit at a precise moment, not afraid to hold on one shot as Young sings, but he also finds fascinating details, like a close-up pan of a pedal steel or out-of-focus horns in the foreground while Young sings. Canvas backdrops, simple but expansive, depict the interior of a log cabin fit for giants, a wide-open prairie, or the elongated stained-glass windows of a church. Young himself cuts a big, brooding figure in a gray suit, a Stetson crammed low over his eyes. Neil Young: Heart of Gold suggests an artist at peace with his decisions. Mr. Soul, aka the Loner, eternally dissatisfied with the world and at war with his demons, has come full circle and shows his real treasures in life, his family, friends and his family of friends. Neil gives a little history for some of his older songs: “Old Man“ about the rancher he purchased his property from in the 70s, “Comes a Time“ about his dear and departed friend Nicolette Larson, and “One of These Days” saying it all, lamenting on how he has treated people in the past with intentions to write them all “a long letter.” This film is the letter he wrote, and he finally has posted it. Thanks Neil! David Giarrizzo is a writer, activist and the Associate Editor for In The Know. He can be reached at dayvee247@yahoo.com.
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
Jonathan
Demme (Swimming to Cambodia, Silence of the Lambs) who
immortalized the Talking Heads' live show in "Stop Making Sense,"
returns to the genre every few years with films like 1998's "Storefront
Hitchcock, the Post Psychedelic figure Robyn Hitchcock, not to mention
a film of performance artist Laurie Anderson." Neil Young: Heart
of Gold shows that he's still in love with music and still knows
how to visually capture its magic.
The
first hour of the piece is predominantly new material , the highlight
for me a number called "Here For You" that Young dedicates to
his daughter turning twenty-one ("An empty-nester song. Maybe a new
genre," he deadpans), augmented by Demme with a shot of the Memphis
Strings backup players standing after their contribution to the song then
filing off the stage. It's subtle in the way it's edited and composed
of medium shots--and it just breaks your heart. In the second half of
the film, Larry Craig accompanies “Harvest Moon” with a broom
and sand paper to give an old time rhythm. Young performs his junkie dirge
"The Needle and the Damage Done" acoustic, alone in the spotlight
on Ryman Auditorium's darkened proscenium in much the same way that "Psycho
Killer" opened Stop Making Sense. Unobtrusive, Demme's gift--and
his greatest contribution--is in comprehending the song and, moreover,
the language of images in such a way as to critique the moments as they
occur. Neil Young: Heart of Gold, then, is a piece of performance
art that's constantly in the process of critiquing itself and, in the
examination, revealing parts of itself hidden or, in its best moments,
old songs transformed by new events bring new light to the source of his
song writing. 