Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema:

Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema: An Analysis of the Last Waltz

The 1960s and 1970s were a period of remarkable cultural proliferation for the United States. The development and emergence of an increasingly influential counterculture would soon find its way to the mainstream of music, art and cinema, to name a few media. The collision of this wave with the political discourse increasingly leaning toward harsh philosophical critique of American vagaries such as military engagement, racism and the obstruction of civil liberties would produce an inflection point for the artistic community. An interest in aggressive realism and political agenda would coincide, establishing American variations on such cinematic movements as Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema. Where the former is distinguished as taken a direct perspective and provoking the subject to render this stylized vision, the latter would promote an interest in evoking an accurate representation of reality. Both represented politicized reaction to objectionable cultural points for the progressive vanguard, but each would be reflected differently. The differences and the often blurred lines between these school of thought are considered here with regard to one of the most effective music documentaries made during this era. Recorded at a concert in 1976 and theatrically released in 1978, the Last Waltz would bring the Band's farewell concert to documentary form. Director Martin Scorsese, who has long affiliated himself with the rock era, would here create a form of documentary that closely straddles the line between Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema.

In order to examine this claim, the discussion will address other key works from the time such as D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1966) and Gimme Shelter (1970) by the Maysles Brothers. An opening sentiment demanding of our consideration would be that concerning the time and place during which both the music subjected and the filmmaker subjecting would come of age. During this time, it can be said that "the popular film and music both reflect and define political and cultural movements in advanced industrial societies by comparing and contrasting the plots and narrative techniques of films" (Plaskete, 55) Certainly, this is a claim which can be made regarding Pennebaker's documentary, which may be referred to somewhat clearly as Cinema Verite. The film "portrays a 23-year-old [Bob] Dylan on his 1965 English tour. Ultimately, we will see how this film brilliantly captures the paradox of Dylan's star popularity in light of his refusal to portray the star his audience wanted and expected. This was not only a personal struggle but a cultural contradiction. In addition to featuring a counterculture celebrity, Pennebaker's film itself falls into the genre of counterculture films." (Bouqueral, 151)

Indeed, Pennebaker's gritty relationship with the subject would show the very young superstar under an immense degree of pressure, with conservative and progressive idealists both finding reasons to hold the outspoken by often cagey and cryptic Dylan in contempt. And yet, Pennebaker outwardly pursues a vision of Dylan which is not flattering. We find him acerbic and unlikeable under the spotlight. The patchwork approach of rough-cut concert footage -- complete with audible booing -- fractious encounters between Dylan and others (such as his legendary humiliation of Scottish folk singer, Donovan) and ultimately, a Dylan addled by drugs, exhaustion and defensiveness, promotes a very specific interest for the filmmaker. Absent are any real defenses for Dylan's behavior.

Similar agenda is marked in the Maysles' film which captures the Rolling Stones disastrous Altamont performance, where a member of the audience was stabbed by Hells Angel. The agenda seems to place responsibility with a generation of wishy washy and irresponsible rockers. The confusion between drug use and the utopian dream are shown to have reached a devastating pitch at this deadly show, and the filmmakers channeled the responsibility of the generation through Mick Jagger. This is not an entirely fair representation, but it is damning. The footage, including the stabbing incident, is real and shocking. Nonetheless, the agenda is also apparent. These examples of Cinema Verite help to frame the discussion on the approach taken in the Last Waltz.

The Last Waltz provides the audience with a take on the Band's farewell concert event that is at once straightforward and evocative of a certain narrative frame. Scorsese directs the film as he might one of his scripted works, levying the heavy stamp of the well-recognized auteur bur remaining more often than not at a healthy distance from the behaviors of his subjects. Little plying appears to alter the nature of the subject, which instead appears to work largely in consort with the filmmaker to create something which presents itself as a captured theatrical performance with the spontaneous trappings of live rock and roll. A demonstration of the intent of Direct Cinema, the camera interferes as little as possible with the subject during the filming of concert scenes. Here, musicians are cast in individual lights which tend to glorify subjects, using genuinely occurring moments of musical invention and solo spotlight to approach each subject as an actor in an ensemble cast.

The Scorsese film is uniquely difficult to classify, however. As an article from 1984 indicates -- perhaps before acceptance of the Last Waltz as important and classic had reached critical mass -- it had to that juncture been conventional for the work to be dismissed as a more minor work in the Scorsese canon. Never was this the position taken due to a presumption of the work's shortcoming, with few characterizing it as anything less than a brilliant piece of concert film. (Aiex, 1) However, as a piece of rock concert film, it had often been taken as rather straightforward and perhaps not even categorized as a documentary. This is a perspective which thirty years hence is likely fully extinct even as core debate on classification of the Last Waltz continues.

In our discussion on the subtle differences between Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema, the Scorsese work may be said to be decidedly more identifiable with the latter school of thought and not the former. Particularly, it might be said that there is a deeply cooperative element between subject and filmmaker which is not otherwise present in the two other documentaries used as primary text here. Where a clear sense antagonism persists between the subject and the filmmaker in both the case of Dylan -- whom Pennebaker selectively displays as a snotty and often cruel figure -- and Jagger -- whom the Maysles project as positively spacey and oblivious -- Scorsese and the Band stake a flattering middle ground which allows the primary subject and the impressive array of periphery figures to be featured in compelling and emotive detail. This is the cooperative angle of the work which helps to define it as falling into the category of Direct Cinema. There is little question that the narrative projected in the Last Waltz, though naturally imbued with the auteur's personal sense of emotional connection to his subject, is also deeply sympathetic to a broad spectrum of perspectives. The fawning admiration paid by such luminary visitors as Neil Young and the elegant stage design, lighting and audience orientation all are faithful to the dreamy enormity of the evening. If Scorsese and the Band were in shared agreement that this would be a metaphorical enactment of the Band's career and contributions, the simultaneous grace and enormity of the event render a statement about the Band itself.

The fact comes through clearly in interviews with members of the Band. This is a device which directly inserts the filmmaker into the process and product of his documentary, with Scorsese becoming an active figure in the work. The notoriously identifiable director's presence in the work causes us to question its true faithfulness to this idea of Direct Cinema. We are indeed inclined to speculate as to how much interference had or had not occurred in the making of this film. To this extent, "Scorsese himself said that he conceived 'The Last Waltz as an opera. Individual musical numbers are interspersed with interviews of the members of the Band, so that the music serves a dual function, as music and as narrative." (Aiex, 2) the extent to which Scorsese pursued that vision is apparent in the interwoven texts of concert and interview-based historical accounts, which are strategically tied to one another. Demonstrative anecdotes concerning the entrance of a member into the original lineup would be stitched to performances where the individual's strengths could be highlighted. Recollection of important historical collaborations such as those with Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan are tied movingly to onstage reunions.

As the history of this documentary generally holds, Scorsese's intense interest in this project and the Band's revered status would invite an unprecedented excess in terms of grandness of scale. Beyond the remarkable list of musicians which in addition to those already noted, also included Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Dr. John, Eric Clapton, et al., additionally brought on board some of cinema's most notable cameramen, lighting technicians and set designers to manifest this operatic vision. Likewise, its occurrence San Francisco's fabled Winterland Ballroom meant that history's greatest and most insidious concert promoter, Bill Graham, was also deeply involved in the nature of the event. The outcome of all of this was a rock concert which -- aside from the actual happenstance of performances -- was heavily controlled by the interest of the filmmaker. Though various aspects of the concert-attendance experience indicate that great care was paid to the appeal of the event itself, there is an explicit self-consciousness on the part of the subject as to the grander intention of the captured film to eulogize the touring band.

And with that purposeful modus operandi in mind, we may take note that the apparent distance between Direct Cinema and Cinema Verite really only serves academic purposes. From the perspective of the filmmaker or the documentarian, there is room both for a realistic portrayal of its subject and for the selection of an angle or impression. Given that the subject is a single concert event, wherein which the musical performances are the purpose of the document, the opportunity for subjective distortion is more limited than might be available in Cinema Verite. Still, the precision and control that Scorsese applies denotes a clear agenda tied closely to the filmmaker's prejudicial interest in the band and, further, the expectation that the film would gain a mass audience.

This latter consideration seems to guide some decisions that are notably inconsistent with the premise of Direct Cinema. Particularly, the intended honesty and the straightforward presentation are underscored by some convenient omission. According to a more current critical evaluation, "a gauzy haze of cocaine lies over the movie. Never mind the reports that close-ups of Neil Young had to be doctored in post- production to remove incriminating evidence from his nostrils; his jaw- grinding intensity stands in stark contrast to the regal bearing of Muddy Waters." (Selvin, 1) This suggests the internal contradiction of purposeful subject orientation and unbiased documentation. Indeed, there is little that can be hidden of the druggy vibe and the dynamics which spontaneously emerge betwixt musicians. But the decision to censor what most firsthand accounts characterize as a huge glob of cocaine on Young's face indicates that there were intentions and priorities which stood above realism or accuracy.

And perhaps, as some critics have been known to remark in their dismissive attendance of the notion of Direct Cinema, there is a degree of disingenuousness in this idea at its core. For while of our subjects, Scorsese's work most identifies with this intent, it does still provide ample evidence of a style and perspective uniquely of the author. This argument is captured well in an article by Garbowski (2001), which comments on the clear correlation between the filmmaker's Catholic upbringing and the focus on family, community and the relationships there within which are recurrent thematic element's of his work. This is not the primary focus of Garbowski's assessment of the Last Waltz, which instead dominates the articles discussion with reference to the ideas of ethicality and a define value system. As the article denotes, "the Catholic imagination focus of close-knit community interacts with what Charles Taylor calls the ethics of authenticity. Taylor holds this to be the predominant ethic in contemporary culture: a largely unarticulated ethic of an individualistic society. Taylor is careful to distinguish between various individualisms, claiming that modes of self-fulfillment that 'are in opposition to the demands of society, or nature, which shut out history and the bonds of solidarity' (40) are ultimately self-defeating. In contrast, authenticity might be seen as individualism's ethical ideal, 'but one that doesn't itself license its self-centered modes'(55)" (Garbowski, 1) as the author applies this idea to the Last Waltz, we begin to see that indeed, Scorsese's vision was deeply driven by a desire to suggest this value system.

The organization of the diverse array of figures reflecting a 'Golden Age' of rock music in a showcase centered around an established historical narrative does drive Scorsese's lens. And given some of the back-stories on the interaction of the iconoclastic array of figures, the intended impression that the Band's diverse and dignified career could be used as a framework for demonstrating the seamless integrative utopianism of rock music may be a matter of selective memory. Last minute contract negotiations with Bob Dylan and the collective disregard of many of the hipper icons on the lineup for the presence of gravel-voiced crooner Neil Diamond indicate that the authenticity and glorification of dynamic sought by Scorsese existed only on stage.

Many of the egos and excesses of the era had come to define the 'individualism' spoken of by Garbowski and intended by Scorsese.

And truly, this mode would provide for one of the more uncomfortable moments of the film. Upon trading axe licks with Robbie Robertson on his own recently recorded take of "Further on Up the Road," the notoriously chemically-dependent Eric Clapton was visibly trumped. This was true to the extent that the flashy British guitar god becomes somewhat flummoxed at one moment as his guitar strap breaks. As Clapton attempts to regain his bearing, Robertson has already picked up Clapton's fill and reduced it to its rawest effect. In Clapton's defeat and the relative flop of Neil Diamond, there are a few examples that either suggest that Scorsese's glorification did not fully succeed or that, contrarily, the filmmaker was truly not afraid to allow the negative impression seep through to print where present.

As an interesting side note though, if we are to consider other aspects of Scorsese's film career in the same mode, there is an evident maturation in the control rendered over the subject. Indeed, the filmmaker's deep and explicit affection for rock music and rock stars plays into a bias in his later work as well. The 2007 release of Shine a Light, which documents a Rolling Stones concert formatted for the mega-screen experience know as IMAX, presents the Stones in all their elderly glory. The creases in Jagger's face and the weathering of Charlie Watts are distinctly in evidence in this straightforward presentation of a single performance with an array of special guest stars such as Jack White and Christina Aguilera. Here, perhaps with less internal tension, Scorsese offers a favorable presentation of the Rolling Stones as a vital musical act with links to past, present and future. And yet, the work is more accurately described as Direct Cinema. Though the presentation is glossy and extremely well-funded, so too are the Rolling Stones today. The act is at once made gritty by their age and slick by their massive touring facade. Scorsese places the Stones under a microscope and in their mid and late 60s, they would large hold up under the scrutiny. Here, the agreement between subject and filmmaker appears to have been well honored.