Films I Love, Part XXVII: “The Last Waltz”
Revised 11/23 9:50 a.m.
So I was locked into Football Saturday Night. The Cats were coming back. My Oregon Ducks were going quack on Arizona.
The Film Babe announced ceremoniously, “I’m going to watch ‘The Last Waltz‘.”
It’s something she does periodically. The lady’s got taste.
I’m not sure how many times she’s watched it or how many times I’ve seen it or how many times we’ve watched it together. Several, at least. (For the record, she guesstimates she’s watched it a dozen times.)
My buddy Knuckle — Don’t ask, just understand it’s a fitting moniker — saw it 17 times when it was playing at his local theater. After ten or so viewings, the manager just waved him in.
It’s always a worthwhile endeavor. It is — and there can be no argument about this — far and away the best rock & roll concert movie of them all. Those Talking Heads fans in the “Stop Making Sense” contingent, please sit down. That one is good. Martin Scorcese’s film about The Band’s last concert is transcendent. Take a look.
You know the deal. Dylan’s buddies from Woodstock, those hippie hosers from north of the border along with that one helluva drummer and and singer from Helena, Arkansas — simply The Band — had been on the road for years and years since they started backing up Ronnie Hawkins. They finally wore out. At least that was the storyline at the time. Levon’s revisionist history is that Robbie Robertson alone wanted to park the bus. Anyway the group hung up their rock & roll shoes.
You’d never feel tension from the interviews in the movie. though they have surfaced and festered since.
So the group and Bill Graham ended it in style. In San Francisco on Thanksgiving night ‘76. $25 got you turkey dinner and arguably the greatest collection of rock royalty ever. Certainly the best music ever at one of these conglomeranzas. (Though I’m looking forward to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert premiering on HBO this coming week.)
So, along with Levon, Robbie, Garth, Rick and Richard, you had a boffo horn section, the Staples singing backup, and Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Eric Clapton . . . take a breath . . . Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Diamond and a few others whose names escape me for the moment.
The tunes in the film, as they usually were with The Band, are immaculate.
The ensemble had the facility of capturing Americana zeitgeist. Their songs were incisive and they rocked. Top score on the Dick Clark American Bandstand scale. And the fivesome lived the life, “getting laid more than Frank Sinatra,” and harvesting deserved acclaim. Even if they often blanched in the spotlight.
The interviews are intimate, and explain why the road doesn’t go on forever.
Remember The Band. But, if you can’t recall the singer, you can still recall the tune.
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I know a guy…a guy you know well, Maven, who saw this film 17 times when it was in the theaters back in the day. 17 times! The place just let him in free after the tenth time or so. If ever a film was worth that kind of viewing time, this is it.