This film should be played loud!

On Thanksgiving Day, in 1976, The Band took the stage for the last time together. After 16 years of nearly constant touring as backing band for Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, as well as their own group, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel decided to hang it up. Well, Robbie Robertson decided to hang it up, and the rest of The Band had to go along with it. In order to go out with a bang, they decided to perform at the venue of their first show as The Band in 1969: the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and invited a gaggle of friends and influences to join the show, including Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, the Staple Singers, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, and Dr. John, and called in Martin Scorsese to film it all.

The Last Waltz acts as both a concert film, capturing this momentous event in its raw, unfiltered glory, and a music documentary, chronicling their history and where they are at the end of the road through interviews with members of The Band. Ultimately, the film is a piece of music history and a good bit of Thanksgiving-time viewing if you’re into that sort of thing.

Scorsese’s love of rock music seeps into everything we see throughout the film: camera angles, lighting, rhythm and what’s on screen and when. He’s a perfect fit. And he brings with him a slew of talented cinematographers, particularly László Kovács, who was a staple of the look of the American New Wave, having worked on such films as Easy Rider, The Last Movie, Paper Moon, and Shampoo. The result is a natural look and mood. Even a couple of songs performed on a soundstage feel real.

Behind the scenes, drug use and rockstar ego made for a difficult production, but it hardly interferes with the overall product. You can’t tell from watching The Last Waltz that Bob Dylan nearly got the entire production shut down because he backed out of wanting his performances recorded on film at the last minute. You can read into the body language and inflections on what’s said that Robertson and the rest of The Band clashed on calling it quits, but it doesn’t actually show up on film. You can’t see the glob of cocaine hanging from Neil Young’s nose because it was edited out in post-production. But it’s all part of the mythos of rock stardom and The Last Waltz.

The highlight of the movie is, of course, the music. The Band is at the top of their game as they barrel through their hits, a few lesser gems, and covers of some of their favorites. Their encore, which takes place at the beginning of the film, is an ironic cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Don’t Do It”. Other highlights include a soulful rendition of “The Weight” featuring the Staple Singers, Van Morrison belting out “Caravan”, Robertson taking over a guitar solo from Eric Clapton on “Further On Up the Road” after Clapton’s strap broke, without missing a beat, and “I Shall Be Released” which features everyone who performed over the course of the show, plus Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood, led by Bob Dylan.

The Last Waltz is considered the greatest concert film of all time, and it’s hard to disagree. It’s such a perfect storm of music and film history, during a tumultuous time in American history, that it acts as a time capsule that merits our attention even 45 years after its release.