Neil Young: Heart of Gold

A concert film shot in Nashville. Neil Young had a brain aneurysm. He was operated on and wrote an album while recovering. The album is Prairie Wind and it was written during his father's illness. The concert is at the Ryman Auditorium. Nashville's old church building, for many years the home of the Grand Ole Opry. The first half of the film is the whole album. The songs are played in record order, none skipped. The second half is older songs. Pieces from the Harvest period and after. From there the film goes no further than being a record of a concert, and does not want to. The staging is deliberately old. A curtain, wood, warm light and a crowded band. Emmylou Harris is on stage. Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham and Young's wife Pegi are there too. There are short conversations with the musicians at the start. Backstage, preparation, a few memories. What the narrative is interested in is not performance but farewell: the whole atmosphere comes from the man having just met death, and from most of the songs looking at a father, a farm and passing time. Jonathan Demme had made a concert film before and keeps the same approach: the camera watches the stage rather than the crowd, the cutting is sparse and there is no display. Young talks between songs. Short, scattered, unprepared. Ellen Kuras shot it. Who it is for: Neil Young listeners and anyone who likes plainly filmed concerts. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a documentary; the narrative tells no life story and takes place almost entirely on the stage.