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#36 - The Song Remains the Same
Joe Massot and Peter Clifton, 1976
A film about legendary rock band Led Zeppelin that intersperses footage of their performances at Madison Square Garden with various "fantasy" sequences and behind-the-scenes incidents.
Led Zeppelin used to be one of my favourite bands but my opinion of the band has dropped considerably over the years. It's gotten to the point where watching their live DVDs feels like less of an appreciation of their physical presence and more an act of bitter completionism (but then again, what else would you call watching at least one movie a day?) Between this film and their 2003 career-spanning DVD, I figure this is the last I need to deal with their work. Let's see where bitter completionism gets me.
For starters, it's too damn long. Two hours and twenty minutes? I get that Zep is very fond of doing extended live performances of their music but I think the fact that they had to insert "fantasy" sequences into the film during said live performances can easily be interpreted as a sign of how little faith the band had in their musical material alone holding an audience's interest. It doesn't help that the fantasy material isn't especially interesting either. John Bonham pretends to be both a gangster and a racecar driver, while John Paul Jones pretends to be an old-fashioned organist who encounters vicious horsemen (but wait, one of them is him), and then there's Robert Plant trying to be some sort of valiant knight. I don't even remember Jimmy Page doing anything on the same level as the others, and I guess it's probably better that I don't. Otherwise, this film is intercut with fairly simple recordings of their live performances and the occasional interjection of a behind-the-scenes quarrel, whether it's manager Peter Grant chewing out stadium staff over bootleg merchandise or even newspaper stories about the band getting robbed. Anything that doesn't directly involve the band performing (or even giving interviews, and even then there aren't any interviews save for a brief clip of Plant backstage) just feels like a blatant attempt to pad the film out.
It probably doesn't help that I managed to hear the soundtrack of the film before watching it and ultimately thought little of it. The visuals on offer are occasionally impressive, but good luck getting me to think that watching this band for the same length of time as the running time for Goodfellas will be remotely satisfactory. They can include as many fantasy sequences as they want, but it won't distract from the lukewarm music on offer here.
Joe Massot and Peter Clifton, 1976
A film about legendary rock band Led Zeppelin that intersperses footage of their performances at Madison Square Garden with various "fantasy" sequences and behind-the-scenes incidents.
Led Zeppelin used to be one of my favourite bands but my opinion of the band has dropped considerably over the years. It's gotten to the point where watching their live DVDs feels like less of an appreciation of their physical presence and more an act of bitter completionism (but then again, what else would you call watching at least one movie a day?) Between this film and their 2003 career-spanning DVD, I figure this is the last I need to deal with their work. Let's see where bitter completionism gets me.
For starters, it's too damn long. Two hours and twenty minutes? I get that Zep is very fond of doing extended live performances of their music but I think the fact that they had to insert "fantasy" sequences into the film during said live performances can easily be interpreted as a sign of how little faith the band had in their musical material alone holding an audience's interest. It doesn't help that the fantasy material isn't especially interesting either. John Bonham pretends to be both a gangster and a racecar driver, while John Paul Jones pretends to be an old-fashioned organist who encounters vicious horsemen (but wait, one of them is him), and then there's Robert Plant trying to be some sort of valiant knight. I don't even remember Jimmy Page doing anything on the same level as the others, and I guess it's probably better that I don't. Otherwise, this film is intercut with fairly simple recordings of their live performances and the occasional interjection of a behind-the-scenes quarrel, whether it's manager Peter Grant chewing out stadium staff over bootleg merchandise or even newspaper stories about the band getting robbed. Anything that doesn't directly involve the band performing (or even giving interviews, and even then there aren't any interviews save for a brief clip of Plant backstage) just feels like a blatant attempt to pad the film out.
It probably doesn't help that I managed to hear the soundtrack of the film before watching it and ultimately thought little of it. The visuals on offer are occasionally impressive, but good luck getting me to think that watching this band for the same length of time as the running time for Goodfellas will be remotely satisfactory. They can include as many fantasy sequences as they want, but it won't distract from the lukewarm music on offer here.