It’s been, shockingly, more than 40 years since The Band’s last appearance on stage together was captured forever in Martin Scorsese’s now-classic The Last Waltz.
Martin Scorsese is back with the beloved group again — this time as executive producer of the new film, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.
For those of us whose adolescence was defined by songs like The Weight and Up On Cripple Creek, watching this documentary is an emotional journey back to a much different time. It’s almost like watching your friends’ home movies because the people in them have been such an important part of your own life and it feels so personal.
Of course, that feeling of nostalgia is heightened, knowing that there’s not going to be a happy ending and that three of the Band’s members — Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel — are gone.
And that becomes an issue when you really examine the movie.
Obviously, as the title implies, this is Robertson’s movie and everything has been filtered through his own lens. It’s revealing that Garth Hudson, the only other living member of the Band, appears solely in old footage. We don’t get his perspective.
For purists, that’s probably a problem. For me, though, it was just a joy to watch these five talented guys become the Band. (For the record, I met Robbie Robertson at BookExpo a few years ago and was totally disillusioned to discover he was an asshole. And, yet, I still love the Band and I loved watching this film.)
Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison all weigh in on the impact the Band had on them and offer heartfelt insight on what made them so special. It’s fascinating to hear the Boss proclaim that the Band contained “three of the greatest white singers in rock history,” and to listen to Robertson reminisce about being booed every night on tour with Bob Dylan when he decided to plug in.
Above all, the movie is a reminder of the Band’s amazing contributions to rock music, to our record collections and, now, to our Spotify playlists. It’s also a reminder of a time without cell phones and the internet, when you actually could escape to someplace like Woodstock, New York and focus on your work and the people you cared about without checking Facebook every 10 minutes. You could just be present.
If you want to recapture that era, head to the theater to watch the Band in their glory days. It’s a real present.
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