The Last Waltz – Blu-ray movie review

In the words of Robbie Robertson, "The Last Waltz" began as a concert and turned into a celebration. There is no word that can be used to describe "The Last Waltz" better than 'celebration'. This is a celebration of The Band, and of music, specifically American music, which The Band loved and played so many styles of.

The idea of the Band in my opinion was for them to be a band with five equal members. Mr. Marty Scorsese obviously didn't think so. He must have been under the impression that the Band was a star vehicle for Robbie Robertson, like history has written, and not the group of equal musicians that slowly waltzed out of Big Pink.

Like Levon Helm said in his book the band was based on the heart and soul of Richard Manuel, the genius of Garth Hudson, the songwriting of robbie robertson, the hopping rythm of Rick Danko's bass, all pulled together by the tight rythms of Levon and Richard. On top of all that the three best vocalists in rock music, none of which are robbie robertson.

Helm is a storyteller, from a family of storytellers. The two, Helm and Hudson, together have crafted a novel and lasting entry in the art of cinematic music: stories whose rhythms in telling are different enough that they establish a sort of aural camera. The other members of the band are talented enough, but act primarily as transferral agents from other innovators and traditions rather than innovating themselves.

Dylan was the primary experimenter in our age of language, mostly in sounds rather than cadence, until he met The Band while recuperating from a near-death experience. When he tied in with them, magic happened: stories, cadence, poetry, merged, all cinematically rooted -- and it transformed us all. Every one of us of a certain age passed through the portal of this music, following the progress through underground copies of the basement tapes and nearly unreadable late generation xeroxes of stolen galleys of "Tarantula."

Discovering The Last Waltz was a bittersweet experience for me though. No sooner do I fall in love with Rick Danko's performance and songs in The Last Waltz that I learn he died in 1999 - and that Richard Manuel committed suicide in 1986. Watching Danko perform Stage Fright from so long ago, and knowing I could never see him do it live, gave me that same empty feeling I got when John Lennon was killed. I saw the Beatles in '64 and '65 and though it was always a distant, remote possibility that they would ever get together again, December 1980 stole away all hope.

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