Demme: forever Young
What’s with Jonathan Demme and Neil Young?
For the third time, the “Silence of the Lambs” director has returned to the Young well to create a raw and mangy concert movie. Demme’s latest wet-kiss to the star follows 2006’s “Heart of Gold,” which captured a flinty acoustic performance in Nashville, and ’09’s “Trunk Show,” which chronicled a gnarlier electric spin.
Of the trilogy, “Journeys” has the most rarity and resonance. It lets Young bring it all back home — literally. Demme breaks up the concert segments with footage of the icon navigating a 1956 Ford Crown Vic around his childhood hometown, a place blessed with a name both musical and narcissistic: Omemee (located in rural Ontario).
As Young surveys his old house and school, he tells boyhood tales of blowing up frogs and the neighbor kid who convinced him to eat tar. It’s a quirky and apt backdrop for songs that often ruminate on the weight of the past and its effect on the present.
While the music, recorded at Toronto’s Massey Hall, features old faves (“After the Gold Rush,” “Ohio”), its spiritual core rests on pieces from Young’s 2010 CD “Le Noise,” a work unlike anything the artist has ever created. Young normally splits his projects between solo acoustic and full-band electric pieces; “Noise,” though, found him creating lone songs with a wild, plugged-in guitar.
In the movie’s most exciting tunes, Young employs instruments specially made for him by producer Daniel Lanois. They create deep bass sounds and rich electro-distortions. Thanks to the theater’s acoustics, the sound shoots right through you. It’s an audio marvel — necessary given the visual weirdness.
Demme framed Young in extreme closeup. Many shots linger between his lower lip and upper neck. It’s so intimate , when some of Young’s spit lands on the camera lens, Demme lets it ooze for minutes on end. That’s one way to bring an icon close.
Of course, the music is the thing, and what’s here earns Demme’s reverence. It’s thrilling to hear Young deliver the agitated riffs of “Ohio” with just a lone guitar, and haunting to hear him deliver the new “You Never Call,” with such an urgent chill. Young seems fully engaged even in the hoariest pieces.
But it’s a newer one, “Rumblin’,” which best makes the film’s case. Its electric guitar notes shake and vibrate to create sound waves that don’t just excite but envelop. They’re an ideal reminder of just how deep this Young well runs.