Well, I did watch it again with my wife this time. It is a film that bears watching again and I appreciated much more the good points of the film. However, I still stand by my comments about the ending.
The beginning scenes give you all the clues to the film in a really cinematic way. The ambiguous opening shot of the country mansion pulls back to reveal a doll’s house. Nothing is really as it seems. The scenes repeated from different points of view. The typewriter clack on the soundtrack morphing into the music. Very much literary references. And one of the things I missed but my wife picked up on quickly - the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia. Nothing is said in the narrative but again the clues are there. Robbie, the lowly cook’s son has been financed in his education by the now dead head of the household and his mother’s assertion that Robbie was “nothing like his father” suggest that there has been a liaison in the past between the master and the cook that produced Robbie. So maybe there is more of the forbidden love element than I originally thought with Robbie and Cecilia being related. Incestuous goings on amongst the gentry - that wouldn’t do!
One element of the film that my wife and I both agreed could have been improved was the sound quality. As most of the dialogue was fast and of the Noel Coward variety, clear sound was essential but we kept missing key lines in the film and having to ask each other what did they just say.
I watched the final half hour carefully again and still feel duped. The director Joe Wright may retort that you were warned during the first half of the film that things were not as they seem. So, why were you not sceptical about the latter scenes in the hospital and the scene at Cecilia’s flat? My response would be that there were no obvious clues in these scenes as there had been in previous scenes. Deliberately so to make the ending that much more unexpected. I was interpreting it as straight forward narrative and genre. A sneaky trick.
The final confessional by the dying Briony I understood better her arguments but I still say that it was a weak gesture that would mean nothing to anyone except her. Atonement, to me, means acknowledging your mistakes, your sins, and trying your best to put them right. Her tragedy was that she could not put them right for Robbie and Cecilia in real life. But she could have confessed to Robbie’s mother. She could have done the same to her mother (although we are told that the episode had been swept under the carpet). But she didn’t and what she did was far little too late and comes across as self serving only. She could have lived with her conscience after confessing better but might have had to endure the wrath or anger of real people still alive. Instead she retreats into a fictional world of “what might have been” for what seems to have been the rest of her life. Maybe that was her penance for her dreadful act. Penance - now that would have been a better title.
I’m on a roll now. The Song Remains The Same just started me thinking again about pop music films again. It’s funny how one thing leads to another. I’d almost forgotten about probably the greatest film about popular music and culture. And it was made by a bone fide film maker with a host of cinematic as well as musical talent.
The Last Waltz is a film documentary by Martin Scorcese based around the final(?) gig of The Band, that legendary but cultish rock band, that became famous through being Bob Dylan’s backing band for a while. The film came out only two years later than The Song Remains The Same yet as films they are poles apart.
The Band were more legends in the American music industry rather than world wide famous rock stars. Their pedigree was impeccable, they were killer live performers and they commanded respect amongst their peers. Their friends numbered among the royalty of the 1970s American music scene. Individually, they were not household names like Led Zeppelin or The Who. But together they created a small phenomonen.
Martin Scorcese obviously was a fan and he conducts several interviews personally with The Band about their career. But the main event is the concert footage with guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Dr John and countless others. Not only is the sound reproduction high quality as is the camerwork and lighting but there is a great feeling of celebration in the performances. Judicial use of editing makes the action always interesting. Scorcese displays the concert footage in its best light and highlights the variety of musical styles on display with The Band accompanying the musical guests on many of the songs. It’s almost like you’re there. There are no great stylistic cinematic tricks to distract you from the performances.
The film is worth watching as a historical document and shows a slice of the 1970s American music scene with many of its movers and shakers but for me it’s all about the music. No pyrotechnics, no real myth making agenda just a record of high quality music for the sake of it. Beautiful.
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I thought I just had to write this piece after having watched The Song Remains The Same on television last night. You probably realise by now that one of my areas of interest is films or movies about popular music and culture. When I saw that this was on the TV last night the closet Led Zeppelin fan in me came to life briefly. I had never seen the film before (strangely) and had almost forgotten about its existence. So I watched it with some anticipation. With all the hoohaa about Led Zeppelin’s reunion gig around Christmas I wasn’t surprised that this surfaced.
In summary The Song Remains The Same documents the Led Zeppelin gig at Madison Square in New York and was released in 1976 when the group were at their zenith. It is interspersed with various dream-like sequences I assume were meant to be representations of the personality of the members of the band. There are also gritty sequences of the hard-nosed manager and his cronies taking the stadium management to task with copious amounts of adult language. As the film was financed entirely by the band it is safe to say that the overall effect is to try and extend the myth of Led Zeppelin. It is designed to make you think that there is more to the band than there actually is. As the camera looks into the crowd you get the feeling that they are mesmerised by the presence of the band. This isn’t just a gig but a religious experience. An alternative explanation is that the looks of love and awe were chemically induced!Â
My overall impression of the film is that of variable quality in both the movie sense and music sense. There are some moments in the film that are absolutely electric, during the concert footage, where you can understand why they were hailed as the best band in the world. The opening - Rock and Roll - gets things off to a tremendous start and many of the more famous riff-based songs fare well. But they do retreat into the more self indulgent, long versions of various songs that was symptomatic of that “progressive” era which can be a big yawn after a while. More jazz than rock. Maybe that’s why there are the dream sequences which tend to be played over an extended solo in the concert. However, Stairway To Heaven does provide one of the highpoints. There is more than a little technical proficiency and panache in Jimmy Page’s guitar work but he tries to prove it time and time again. But I guess that this is what fans expected at the time and much of the filming is based around close ups of Page playing his guitar and posing. However, he is outgunned in the posing department by the lion-haired, lead singer Robert Plant who stands and wiggles his hips in an almost effeminate posture before unleashing his powerful and unique voice.
The film can be magnificent and irritating at the same time. I can’t help but compare it to The Kids Are Alright with The Who. Kids has a vibrant energy as a film and a record of performances that The Song… only reaches in small segments. But there are large parts of The Song… when it just seems a bit too pretentious and a bit too much like fodder for the Spinal Tap script. I am still a fan of the music but I can’t buy into the Led Zeppelin myth. Having read many reports of their live gigs over the years it seems they tended to be a bit hit and miss as a live band (although the Madison Square Garden performance was very good). So when you see that 20 million people tried to get tickets for the reunion gig I find that a bit surprising. But I am an old cynic and all the myth building in the intervening years has clearly done its job to herald the return of the rock messiahs. I am sure that The Song Remains The Same has also played its part in this process.
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