Indie director Jim Jarmusch lenses a low-tech tribute to protean rocker Neil Young and his long-standing band, Crazy Horse. Stitched together from archival material shot in 1976 and 1986 along with candid scenes of Young and the band kicking back between shows, this rockumentary is as ragged as it is direct.
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If you're a Neil Young fan, you will love this movie. The music is outstanding, almost mind-altering in it's depth and beauty. Yes, I call it beautiful even though it's raw and riotous, even though it's crude and vulgar, even though it sometimes feels like the harrowing of hell, it's beautiful music. Young's music is incomparable and his live performance shows you what an artist looks like when he's under the influence of his muse. He gives a succinct insight into his vision of true rock music: it never gets comfortable, it never gets tame, it never gets easy. Neil Young is in a class with Bob Dylan and Keith Jarrett: artists completely dedicated to their work. I highly recommend this movie. Jarmusch does an incredible job of combining 3 decades worth of footage into this 1996 tour. The interview with Jim Jarmusch and Young is very interesting: two artists talking about what they do.
some guy from manitoba weighed in here and i can only echo his comments. i have been a fan of this band since 1970 and now i feel like i would have been better off not seeing this film. i don't care to read interviews with musicians, and i knew neil only through his music. he comes off as being a rather dim guy (not knowing even roughly the distinction between the old and new testaments of the bible), getting in pointless arguments with the band. i am almost of the mind to say that the whole film is a put-on, that jim and neil thought it would be really funny to do a spinal tap-like thing, but if that is the case, the thing backfires. watching pedro talk, not once, not twice, but three times about how the filmmaker can't possibly do his job effectively may be the big wink, but ironically jim creates nothing but a tedious film that offers no enlightenment whatsoever into the people who are making this music, and the grainy 8mm (no doubt supposed to reflect the raw nature of crazy horse's music) only keeps us from seeing just how boring it is to watch these guys in action. i am living in berlin right now, and the germans just love neil, and some think this film shows a guy at the height of his powers (one review of the show at the waldbuhne actually claims his voice has mellowed and gotten less whiny). to me, the one-chord solos only reveal a guy who hasn't given his instrument much attention over the decades (but he can sure write songs!), and the feedback-drenched "we may never end this coda" philosophy has grown really, really stale to the point of self-parody. spinal tap indeed. jim, on the other hand, seems to think less is more. less insight, less clarity, and not a bit of interesting camerawork in over ninety minutes. for comparison, see what scorcese did with the last waltz or demme did with stop making sense. truly one of the worst portraits of a group i have ever seen.
I DO like Neil Young and Crazy Horse, yet I felt Neil's simplistic guitar solos took up more screen-time than I would have liked. That is my only reservation. Jarmusch' good-natured approach and sympathetic questions makes this watchable and revealing. Neil's father obviously has great respect for his son. And Frank Sampedro's cynical retorts were very funny! More to the point - "Like a hurricane" still sounds like a rock classic.
Ive seen about 3 other documentaries on Neil Young,but this one is the most interesting.Not just a typical concert film....but an overview of Crazy Horse.Some of the concert footage was a little long though.I am a big Neil Young fan and if you are also,you will like this movie.The best Crazy Horse movie is still Rust Never Sleeps ,though.