The Last Waltz
Directed by a fan of the musicians involved in the film, The Last Waltz is considered one of the greatest musical films, if not the greatest, ever produced in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. It features the last concert given by a group of musicians who referred to themselves as “The Band”. Hence the name The Last Waltz was given to the title of the film. Besides the concert, the viewers are enlightened with the life experiences of these musicians through the interviews dispersed between the scenes of the concert. In this way, the movie is created as an informative film since the interviews inform the audience of the background information of The Band. The Last Waltz is a unique documentary because of its exceptional techniques incorporated into the film. One of them was the fact that it was decided with a storyboard. Instead of just recording down the key components needed for the film right on the spot, the director Martin Scorsese had spent time prior to the filming to carefully plot down his ideas/visions of how he wanted to record the scenes and how some of the shots he hoped to accomplish during the concert were to be positioned. Thus, parts of the documentary were scripted. The viewers themselves were able to see that occurring in the film. For example, the very first scene of the movie was set in a room that had a pool table where the musicians appeared to be having fun and the atmosphere displayed was very relaxing. In doing so, it conveys to the viewers a feeling of those times in people’s busy lives where they had concluded to sparing some joyful moments with the ones close to them. On a different level, a part of The Band’s life was exposed to the audience—their days having fun and it symbolizes for the what life is like in the music business career. The scene draws to an end as one of the members of The Band took a shot at the balls on the table. The action itself leads to the starting of the concert where the group was walking to their positions on
Cited: The Last Waltz. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1978. DVD.