The Wake

Documenting the career of an aging rock star is always a gamble. There’s a chance of severe disappointment, a chance that the hero in question can’t live up to the expectations set by the records that the audience knows so well. In the case of Jonathan Demme’s new movie, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, that gamble paid off big-time.

Filmed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Heart of Gold documents the two-night stand which premiered the material from Young’s latest release, Prairie Wind. With the exception of a few interviews at the beginning, the movie lets the music do the talking.

Young’s voice sounds great on the recordings, and his band is one of the tightest country-rock ensembles ever assembled. Guests like Emmylou Harris and long-time Young collaborators like keyboardist Spooner Oldham add a richness to the sounds of the new songs and classics alike. They also add to the nostalgia which permeates the movie.

Young recorded Prairie Wind after learning he had a brain aneurysm, and the songs on the new album are full of reflection, mortality, and loss. Demme’s not afraid to get his camera close and the shots of Young’s face show a man deeply involved in each word and each note of music. The “personal touch” of the camera work brings out the feelings portrayed in the material.

After an hour, the new songs begin to blur together. At this point, Heart of Gold turns to Young’s expansive repertoire and extracts a few classics to help the film regain momentum. Three songs from the seminal Harvest album solidifies the movie as a must-see for any Neil Young fan. Missing from the movie are the harder sounds of Young’s work with the band Crazy Horse, but those songs wouldn’t fit. Notorious for his chameleon-like genre switching, this songwriter has done too much over the years to capture it all in under two hours. By focusing on his “quieter” material, Demme has given us a look at where Young is at right now, not a definition of who Neil Young is.

The old material also points to two startling facts about this songwriter. First, his songs sound as fresh today as they did 30 years ago. And secondly, he had as much lyrical depth in his youth as he does now. One listen to the drug addiction elegy “The Needle and the Damage Done,” serves as proof.

Ultimately, Heart of Gold is a movie for Neil Young fans. The cinematography has its merits, but the music is the reason to check this one out.