Pluskylang Great Film overall

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Twins65 I finally saw it.Yep, I've heard about this concert pretty much my entire music consumption life (50 years!), and had never seen the movie of The Band's break-up. I just read an excerpt of Robbie Robertson's new book, so I had to check out the movie.All I can say is...great production, flawed concept. It looks awesome. Scorsese delivers again. But the whole presentation of including interviews interspersed with performances just didn't work for me. One minute your grooving to a nice version of "Life Is a Carnival" or "Stage Fright", and then the momentum crashes as we get saddled with another interview. Plus, there was so much good stuff that didn't make the movie (see Wikipedia for all the details) that it just feels like we saw a shell of what a great night it was if you were there.Still worth checking out, as it's a great mid-70's time capsule of the rock world before music videos took over a short-time later.

classicsoncall Back in the late Sixties/early Seventies, a friend of mine introduced me to a disparate range of musical performers, stuff I would never have discovered on my own, but he persisted in having me borrow his albums and I came to appreciate various artists and styles. Stuff like Ten Years After, Canned Heat, King Crimson, Muddy Waters and the list goes on. One of them was The Band, a group I immediately took a liking to with their albums Music From Big Pink, The Band and Stage Fright."The Last Waltz" chronicles The Band's final concert appearance at San Francisco's Winterland Theater on Thanksgiving Day, 1976. There's probably no better venue for assembling some of the best musicians in the world in one place at one time, and music fans who weren't even born yet will appreciate the performances here from the likes of Ronnie Hawkins, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, and Bob Dylan. My favorite number was probably Neil Young joining The Band with a soulful rendition of 'Helpless', while Muddy Waters kicks out those blues jams with 'Ain't That a Man'. One of the surprising numbers comes from someone you wouldn't expect to see here, with Neil Diamond offering up a passionate version of 'Dry Your Eyes'.Intersperesed with quickie interview segments, the film captures the emotional exhaustion of The Band's members as they come up on sixteen years of musical touring. I guess for them it was time to move on, even though a group like the Stones has more than doubled that tenure since this film came out. 1976, it seems so long ago.As I write this, Levon Helm passed on a couple of months ago. Watching him as a vibrant and energized performer in this documentary was in sharp contrast to a concert appearance I saw him in just last year performing with his own band. On that night he didn't even sing because he was recuperating from an illness. It's sad to see these legends pass on, but having these moments captured on film and recordings allow us to relive their glory days any time we like. If you haven't seen "The Last Waltz" yet, it's time that you do. If you have, watch it again.

secondtake The Last Waltz (1978)I see this movie gets high marks by lots of viewers, and I'll say right off that I like the Band, and love most of the performers in the movie. And some of the individual performances are terrific, which live shows do not guarantee. Getting unadorned footage of Neil Young or Joni Mitchell is great, and lots of different songs by the Band itself, excellent for what it all is.But as a movie, something to sit and watch and get involved in? Not a chance. The interviews were really really boring even for someone like me prepared to be fascinated. And there is a lot of it, people sitting around talking about how really great the music was and how the concert was meant to be more than just music, but a celebration, blah blah. My god, these are adults talking! Ha...so full of themselves, and Scorsese, a great director, seems sucked into the rock star worship, too, forgetting to film it, edit it, and make it more than just another rock and roll concert film. Which is what it is.As a quick comparison, you find something similar in Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense" which is better just by virtue of being more polished and devoid of silly interviews. And there's "Woodstock," which has a whole other level of historical interest. Maybe there was a feeling "The Last Waltz" was in fact an historical moment, but not really, not for anyone except, maybe, the Band. You all know who you are. If you love the music, you'll love the music. The interviews are hard to imagine liking more than once, if that, but the music is what it is. I'd recommend the CD.

ametaphysicalshark In the words of Robbie Robertson, "The Last Waltz" began as a concert and turned into a celebration. There is no word that can be used to describe "The Last Waltz" better than 'celebration'. This is a celebration of The Band, and of music, specifically American music, which The Band loved and played so many styles of."The Last Waltz" is a concert film, and there's a common sentiment outside of the rock fan community that such films can never be true art films. If proof exists that this is not true, "The Last Waltz" is it. The film is brilliantly directed by Martin Scorsese, who captures this incredibly powerful and remarkable performance with skill that can't be described as anything other than amazing. This film looks absolutely stunning. What else can one ask for other than a film that looks pristine and beautiful, and contains some of the best music ever written? Scorsese is a smart filmmaker and knows that he could add to the film by including short interview segments with the members of The Band, all of which are relevant to and enhance the film.The beauty of "The Last Waltz" is its simplicity. The Band were probably the most unpretentious major musical group there has ever been. They were interested in nothing other than playing good music, and Scorsese, at least in this instance, is not interested in doing anything other than creating a simple, true document of a memorable, great musical event. That's what he does, he captures a brilliant concert where the addition of celebrity musical guests does not cheapen it at all, but makes it a true celebration of music. Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Neil Young... the list goes on and on. Phenomenal musicianship, phenomenal film-making, a phenomenal film all around. One of the best and most joyous films ever made. 10/10