Hit Parade

By F.R.

THE LAST WALTZ Directed by Martin Scorsese

The Last Waltz is a rock-concert movie -no more, no less -that could be the best such film ever made. The reasons for its success are simple. Director Martin Scorsese had the good fortune to record a remarkable concert, The Band's final outing at San Francisco's Winterland in 1976, and he had the good sense to record it with care. For once we are spared sloppy home-movie camera work and endless shots of the blissed-out fans: Scorsese and his team of cinematographers use film to enhance the music rather than smother it. While The Last Waltz is as loud and grand as one expects, the film fosters an intimate relationship between its audience and the rock artists onscreen.

Even nonrock enthusiasts may find The Band worth getting to know. During the course of a 16-year career, this group produced some uncommonly rich music. Their best work demonstrates a literary appreciation of American myth and a ravenous affection for American pop songs; jazz, folk, hillbilly, soul and country music are all part of The Band's mix. In The Last Waltz, the group performs most of its best-known numbers. At times its members share Winterland's stage with such past associates and current cronies as Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison and Emmylou Harris.

Except for a couple of bland turns by Joni Mitchell and Neil Diamond, the concert is one high after another. Hawkins sets the pace with his screaming version of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love? From there, it's on to Neil Young's Helpless, Paul Butterfield's Mystery Train, Muddy Waters' Mannish Boy and Morrison's downright ecstatic Caravan. The Band's numbers are full of lyric intricacies and haunting musical motifs. When the group joins the Staples to do The Weight on a mysterious sound stage set away from the concert hall, the song becomes a mini-movie on its own.

The Last Waltz concludes with Dylan, and Scorsese photographs him better than Dylan photographed himself in Renaldo and Clara. But the real star of the film is Band Guitarist Robbie Robertson, whose ability to project charm and sex on-camera can be matched by only a few movie stars. Robertson is so mesmerizing that one can almost forgive him a self-martyring speech in which he attempts to link himself with every rock star who has ever met a tragic death.

That speech occurs during one of the film's superficial interview sections, which probably should have been dispensed with altogether. The only other defect of the movie is the final sequence, which at tempts in vain to turn The Last Waltz into a statement about the end of the rock era. More crudely made concert movies, such as Woodstock and Gimme Shelter, needed sociological ballast to carry them, but this movie does not. In The Last Waltz, the music does it all.

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