Neil Young film becomes American family affair

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Neil Young, iconoclastic troubadour
for decades of counter-culture in the United States, has made
the ultimate American family film.

It seems ironic, but it is true, says Jonathan Demme, who
directed “Neil Young: Heart of Gold,” which is now playing in
U.S. theaters.

The term “family film” is associated with Disney and Pixar
and huggable stuffed toys. Young’s song “Needle and the Damage
Done” speaks to heroin addiction, and he will forever be linked
to 1960s and 1970s anti-war protests with songs like “Ohio”
from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And since then, the
60-year-old has only grown in stature to become a standard
bearer for angst-ridden teen rockers.

Yet, in “Heart of Gold,” the Canadian-born Young and Demme
have created what they term a “dream concert” of songs from his
recent “Prairie Wind” album and older “Harvest” and “Harvest
Moon” records that conjure spirits of country-and-western
music’s past and harken to a simple life in the North American
heartland.

“It puts me in touch with some deeply felt, old-fashioned,
powerful ideas about what America stands for, what the family
stands for, what friends stand for,” Demme told Reuters in a
joint interview with Young. “There’s a complete absence of
cynicism. I think it makes you feel good to be human.”

“Heart of Gold” is a concert, but don’t call it a “concert
film,” its makers said. Young, his bandmates and friends like
Emmylou Harris sing and play 19 songs, but each tune was
elaborately staged over two nights in Nashville, Tennessee’s
Ryman Auditorium 4 — the first home of the Grand Ole Opry.

HANK WILLIAM’S OLD GUITAR

Young and the others dress in old-style country costumes,
and the veteran folk rocker strums legend Hank Williams’ old
guitar. Each song is played in front of a painted backdrop,
such as a prairie field or farmhouse family room, to create a
setting that puts Young’s lyrics in proper context.

Musicians change with each tune. Lights and cameras enhance
the mood. As the song “It’s a Dream” plays, for instance, Demme
dissolves one picture into the next to create a dream state.

“Heart of Gold” is not a documentary, but Demme and Young
said the songs, lyrics and their interpretations onscreen

give audiences insight into the man because so much of the
music is rooted in Young’s personal history.

“This is not a rock-u-doc, or docu-rock, or whatever it’s
called,” said Young. “We heard about that 30 years ago. People
started making movies about music and concerts, and that was
cool. But now, this is taking it song-by-song.”

“Prairie Wind” was written after Young was diagnosed with a
potentially fatal brain aneurysm and during a time when his
father was battling dementia. In early 2005, between the
record’s release and the filming of “Heart of Gold,” Young
underwent brain surgery and his dad died.

Young said the confluence of events put him in a reflective
mood while writing the record and making the movie.

“Far from Home” reminded him of sitting around his
childhood home with his father, uncle and cousins playing music
and singing songs. His father gave him a ukulele to learn to
play guitar. “I was just this goofy little kid,” Young said.

Audiences will note, when all the singing and playing is
done, that “Heart of Gold” is dedicated “for daddy.”

CRITICS RAVE

The movie premiered last month at the Sundance Film
Festival to a standing ovation, and for the most part, critics
are raving about its combination of music and storytelling.

Demme is known as the Oscar-winning director of Hollywood
movies like thriller “Silence of the Lambs,” but among his
works are the Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film “Stop Making
Sense.”

He and Young met when Demme was working on 1993′s
“Philadelphia,” and he asked the musician to write music for
the movie. Young declined, but the two became fast friends.

When Young wanted to make the movie, he called Demme and
the two sat down to begin planning it.

Young said he likes Demme because the director possesses a
positive energy that shows in his work, and he makes people
around him feel like winners. “He’s a fun guy,” Young said.

For his part, Demme, 61, said he matured listening to
Young’s music, and back in those heady, anti-war days of the
late 1960s and early 1970s, Young’s songs helped him come to
terms with his feelings about the world and his place in it.

He tried to capture those feelings in the movie and share
them with the audience because, he said, Young’s music is as
relevant today as it was decades ago.

“The audience,” Demme said, “needs to get away from
cynicism and into a positive place for an hour-and-a-half, and
just let beautiful music and emotions wash over them, man.”