Neil Young Journeys film transports us from his childhood to the stage

We get loosey-goosey reminiscences about Young's small-town boyhood -- "That's Goof Wilson's house. He convinced me to eat road tar"-- interspersed with stripped-down concert footage.

—Alison Gillmor, CBC reviewer

Okay, it's been a few years since Neil Young lived here. But he's everyone's favourite honorary Winnipegger, and he's coming - in film form, at least - to Cinematheque this week.

Neil Young Journeys is the 66-year-old musician's third collaboration with filmmaker Jonathan Demme, and Young fans will want to tag along on this wonderfully shaggy doc, which is part concert film and part rambling road trip.

The film starts with Young driving a boat-sized 1956 Ford Crown Victoria from Omemee -- that would be the "town in north Ontario" from the song "Helpless" --down to Toronto to play a concert. (The May, 2011 gig at Massey Hall, in support of the album Le Noise, is the same show that came to Winnipeg in July, 2010. If you loved it, you can relive it. If you missed it, here's your chance.)

Demme (who's helmed everything from The Silence of the Lambs to The Manchurian Candidate remake) seems to find in Young a kindred spirit, a creatively curious guy who can't be nailed down. Maybe that's why their three collaborations have felt so wistful and affectionate.

We get loosey-goosey reminiscences about Young's small-town boyhood -- "That's Goof Wilson's house. He convinced me to eat road tar"-- interspersed with stripped-down concert footage.

Live performance is notoriously difficult to capture on film, but Demme does it. As with Demme's Neil Young: Heart of Gold from 2006, the concert sequences are unhurried and completely centred on the music. This footage is even more intimate, since this is just Neil with his guitar (and later, piano and organ). And of course, there's that voice - thin, high, plaintive and completely compelling.

Demme goes close-up. I mean really close-up - there's a so-called "spit cam" that's located right in the microphone, so you see Young's big grizzled face looming in and out. With this scale, you feel as if he's playing just for you. (I thought at first that Young was doing a little warm-up for Demme's cameras - and then realized there were hundreds of other people there.) 

Young does some familiar old numbers like "Ohio," "Like a Hurricane," "Down by the River" and "After the Gold Rush." A lot of the new material didn't connect for me, and believe me, I feel bad about this. I know Young is still working, still writing -- about environmentalism, political activism, aging. He's not just resting on what he's already done, and he doesn't want to keep playing his 1970s hits over and over again.

That's what makes Young's music so personal and vital. Still, I'm ashamed to say that there were several points in the film where I felt like that drunken, obnoxious fan who keeps yelling, "Hey, man! Play Heart of Gold!"

Bottom line: A great film for Neil Young fans. Even greater if you like Le Noise.