In what is rightly considered the greatest concert film ever shot, Martin Scorsese used multiple cameras and intricate lighting cues to capture The Band's farewell gig. The rousing onstage footage is spliced with laidback interviews conducted by Marty himself - still intriguing despite being mercilessly mocked in Spinal Tap - and the host of musical cameos beggars belief: Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison... As Scorsese himself notes, this wasn't so much a leaving party as the end of an era.
DVD Extras:
A Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese commentary? Well, not exactly. What we actually get is the occasional Marty soundbite factored into Robertson's running gobspeak. A second audio track comprised of assorted band and crew members offers yet more fact, fiction and anecdotage, and a 21-minute featurette, Revisiting The Last Waltz, lets Marty and Robbie tell us how the project "snowballed" from 16mm quickie to 35mm military operation. Make sure you check out the archival footage, too: who could resist 10 minutes' worth of jamming between Clapton, Young, Starr and various other gatecrashing luminaries?
