Neil Young: Heart of Gold - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Neil Young: Heart of Gold' captures music magic

By BOB TOWNSEND
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Neil Young: Heart of Gold," director Jonathan Demme's lovingly shot document of Young's August 2005 performances at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, has to rank among the most heartfelt concert films ever made.

It's also one of the best in recent memory, both in terms of the quality of the singing and playing and the extended onstage views of Young and his close-knit ensemble of musicians — reacting to his songs and each other with a palpable sense of exhilaration at being together, fully immersed in the creative moment.

Paramount Classics

'Neil Young: Heart of Gold'

A-

The verdict: Beautiful film captures music magic.

Director: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Neil Young, Emmylou Harris
Run time: 140 minutes
Release date: Feb. 10, 2006
Rating: PG for some drug-related lyrics.

Meet the director
Director Jonathan Demme describes his relationship with Neil Young as one of creative partners.

On the web
Official movie site

The warm mood is set when the camera settles in on the Ryman, where an impossibly huge full moon hangs above the roof of the country music shrine like a hazy blue spotlight. Inside, the curtain goes up and the 60-year-old singer-songwriter appears, looking quite at home — wearing a muted gray cowboy suit and a wide-brimmed Stetson, strumming a vintage Martin guitar that he later reveals once belonged to Hank Williams.

Those sorts of signifiers abound in "Heart of Gold." But they're not always as evident. If there's a flaw to Demme's straight-on, show-me-the-music approach (he employs eight cameras trained on the stage and never once cuts to the audience), it's that he gives short shrift to some of the concert's poignant backstory.

As most fans will know, Young came to the Ryman to debut his most recent project, "Prairie Wind," released last September. Much of the remembrance-filled, country-tinged recording (which was nominated for a 2005 Grammy for rock album of the year) was written and produced in Nashville, just before Young underwent surgery to remove a potentially deadly brain aneurysm. So his post-hospital return to Nashville was infused with a wistful sense of being alive and well.

Many of the family and longtime friends who joined him on "Prairie Wind" and at the Ryman — including his harmonizing wife Pegi, steel guitarist Ben Keith, keyboardist Spooner Oldham and singer Emmylou Harris — are veterans of Young's two previous Nashville recordings, 1972's "Harvest" and 1992's "Harvest Moon."

Nine songs from "Prairie Wind" make up the first half of "Heart of Gold." The second, livelier half features 10 evocative gems from Young's back catalog. That set begins with a solo rendition of "I Am a Child," from his Buffalo Springfield days. It goes on to include vibrant renditions of "Old Man," "The Needle and the Damage Done" and "Heart of Gold," and closes with the winsomely nostalgic "One of These Days."

Much like Young's 1979 film "Rust Never Sleeps" (which he directed himself under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey), parts of "Prairie Wind" can be called a concert fantasy. But instead of the earlier film's giant, cartoonish amplifiers and gnomish roadies, painterly scrims flow behind the performers, picturing a train crossing the prairie and the interior of a homey cabin with a stone hearth. And instead of Young's wildly hard-rocking backing trio, Crazy Horse, there's a gently smiling band of road warriors with graying hair and lined faces.

Demme, best known for his Academy Award-winning "The Silence of the Lambs," has also directed such estimable performance films as the frenetic "Stop Making Sense" with Talking Heads and the quirky "Swimming to Cambodia" with Spalding Gray. With Young and "Prairie Wind," Demme captures the essence of a legendary musician who has yet to burn out or fade away, but instead is aging gracefully.