Jonathan Demme on "Prairie Wind"

Jonathan Demme and Neil Young

UPDATE: 1/26/06 - Director Jonathan Demme's film on Neil Young "Heart of Gold" premieres at Sundance Film Festival.

Anticipation of Neil Young's upcoming Nashville Ryman concerts continues to build.

A posting on Rust by Ron (via e2f) from Yahoo!News indicates that there will be some sort of public sale of tickets to the concerts.

Some other interesting tidbits in the article by Josh Grossberg of Daily Variety. Director Demme comments that Neil's decision to move ahead on the Prairie Wind film project was precipitated by his brain aneurysm last March. Demme is quoted:

"Because he never backslides, I've talked to Neil often about doing a performance film, and I knew this was right as soon as he sent me the CD."

"These songs, which cover everything from 9/11 to loving your children, came from a deep place, and they are so dreamy and gorgeous. He recorded them in between when he was told he had an aneurysm and when he had the operation to correct it.

Maybe he was in a certain special place?"

Apparently, Paramount Classics will acquire the movie rights and distribute the concert film without hearing any of the songs, based on Demme and Young's track records.

Sounds like they have some smart folks at Paramount Classics.

The partnership between Demme and Young is shaping up along the lines of Neil's collaborations with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. Looks like Thrasher needs to update the Neil's buddies page.

Also, see The Complex Sessions: Neil Young & Crazy Horse video directed by Jonathan Demme.

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Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/12/2006 | Making a concert film come alive

Demme's Favorite Concert Films

From Stop Making Sense to Neil Young: Heart of Gold, Jonathan Demme has established himself as the foremost director of feature-length pop-music performance films. He was on a Neil Young jag when he was asked to name his favorite music movies that he didn't direct.

• Woodstock (1970), directed by Michael Wadleigh. "I started watching Woodstock a couple of weeks ago with my teenagers, and I was really struck by the incredibly astute way in which the musical portions of that film were done. Unerringly great shot after shot after shot."

• Rust Never Sleeps (1979), directed by Neil Young. "An endless reference point for David Byrne and I when we were making Stop Making Sense. David would say: 'We've got to try to be as good as Rust Never Sleeps.' That was the gold standard."

• Neil Young in Berlin (1983), directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. "Neil's got a hell of a body of work. It's that tour where he was using the vocoder. He's got Nils Lofgren on guitar, and Ben Keith - the grungy, young Ben Keith. Git it."

• Latcho Drom (1993), directed by Tony Gatlif. "A French film that is both a nonstop music performance and gives a complete history of the Gypsy people. It's a brilliant masterpiece. You've got to track that down."

• Greendale (2003), directed by Neil Young. "I thought he did something really revolutionary with that as a concert, and then finally, as a film. One of my favorite films of all time."