The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz (1978) records The Band's farewell concert. The group had been on stage sixteen years and played their last show in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976. It began with a meal: turkey was served to the audience and a dance floor was laid in the hall. The guest list is extraordinary: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris and Ringo Starr. Each plays a few songs. Scorsese shot it as a film rather than a concert recording. Seven cameras were used, it was shot on 35mm, and a shooting plan was prepared for every song; which camera would be where during which solo was written down in advance. Nothing like that had been done for a concert film. Interviews cut in between. Robbie Robertson explains why the road had to end, and one of his lines is taken as the summary of the film: the road is a bad way to live. Muddy Waters's number was nearly not captured; part of the camera crew was on a break and it was shot with a single camera. Traces of cocaine in one guest's nose appeared in the footage and were removed frame by frame in the edit; that became the most repeated production story about the film. Some studio performances were filmed afterwards on a stage and added to the concert; the film does not conceal this. It is regarded as the measure for concert films. It runs 117 minutes. Good for: music documentaries, the seventies rock scene, and Scorsese. Less good for: it feels long without an interest in the band and the interviews are fragmentary.