Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains The Same (Blu-ray + HD-DVD) + Mothership CD/DVD Set
Film -- Picture:
B Sound: B+ Extras: C+/C Film: C+
Music CDs
–- Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: D Music: B+
Note: The Song Remains The Same was originally issued in this new
upgraded version in November 2007, but all four versions had to be pulled or
stopped when the licensing of a 1976 interview Cameron Crowe did with the band
did not have its rights totally cleared for reasons we did not have the full
story on when we posted this review.
Issued in both high definition formats, plus two different DVD-Video
sets, those older editions are collector’s items that are only going to become
more valuable, so get them while you can.
Picture and sound performance is the same in all high definition
versions issued.
Among the
many Rock Opera films, Rockumentaries and concert films of the time, Led
Zeppelin wanted to do a film of their own and with a difference of some
kind. In an age where there was no home
video, no computers, no cable TV and rarely made TV appearances, they wanted to
get a film made that would deliver the band at their best and most
interesting. They turned to not one, but
two British filmmakers with a good track record, Peter Clifton (whose Popcorn: An Audio-Visual Thing (1969)
and The London Rock N Roll Show
(1973) showed a deep sense of visuals and Rock history) and Joe Massot (whose
1968 Wonderwall has a surreal sense
and became a cult film) to deliver a memorable project.
Combining
behind the scenes footage, unexpected touring troubles, fantasy sequences and
outstanding concert footage, The Song
Remains The Same was a hit and has remained very popular for years; a
popularity home video has kept alive for decades. Of course, the sound was never good and
transfers usually lame, but Warner and Swan Song (the band’s still-active
record label) have fixed up the film for its high definition release and now
that the HD format war is over, is the only filmed concert film that will have
seen the light in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Experimental
at times, the film’s biggest problem may have been having two directors instead
of just one vision, with the incoherencies often described as intentionally
aimed for drug trips, but so many films that were have been forgotten or become
laughable. The opening is a gangster
sequence that was already dated by the Coppola Godfather films by half a decade and does not even look like better
examples in British gangster films of the time.
Then you have other fantasy sequences, like one during The Rain Song inspired in part by Robert
Plant’s love of Lord Of The Rings, but it too is out of place.
Of
course, the tour troubles are authentic and not stupid reality TV, so those
parts work and the concert footage is the best part of the film all around,
more than proven by the outtakes in the extras.
However, even that can get sloppy as early in the film, the band arrives
at an airport. It is unidentified, but
it is the old (and now closed) Pittsburgh International Airport (you can see
the police car with the logo on the door that has the name and looks like
Captain America’s shield) escorting the band in the limo. They even come out of a tunnel and it is the
Pittsburgh skyline at the time, then in the very next cut, they are in New
York!
One
explanation is that it is a drug trip, another it that they went to Pittsburgh
for drugs because they could not get as good in New York (!?!) and another is
the makers thought no one would notice, meaning someone editing was on something. However, if none of those are true, they
should tell us how they did that to save millions gas money.
The
result of that kind of sloppiness has hurt the film as a whole and though many
would like to explain the problems as the lack of closure of counterculture
times, it really shows any vision never worked entirely and only the music and
seeing the band at their peak has kept the film popular and a favorite. With home video’s ability to skip boring
parts, that only helped it stay that way.
32 years later, we see what an important document it really is of the
band as one of the greatest in music history as Rock has fallen on hard times
and the record labels are in trouble that no one could have imagined then.
Now that
they have turned out to be so influential, more than in music, you can see
clearly what the big deal was about saved on film and not just low-definition
video for posterity. No, The Song Remains The Same is not one of
the greatest Rock films, but it is one of the greatest Rock bands of all time
in peak form and that is reason enough for it to remain popular for many
decades to come.
Released
at the time to go with the film’s release, Warner Music issued a two CD/one DVD
set called Mothership which is
really nothing more than abbreviated versions of better past Zeppelin box
sets. The CD tracks come from the old CD
box that boasted Page’s personal supervision in mastering, but the PCM 2.0
16/44.1 Stereo sound throughout sounds shrill, limited and is disappointing
throughout. The master tapes need
revisited. The DVD is from the untitled
DVD set called DVD and the quality is the same as that decent set, especially
with its DTS 5.1 mixes (like the DVD versions of Song we did not receive to review) leading one to ask, why issue
such a set when diehard fans will buy the full sets? Heck, Zeppelin albums are being reissued in
audiophile vinyl yet again, so this is a stop gap crash course set at best and
only for those curious to see and not wanting to spend the money on the larger
sets. They’d be better off starting with
this film instead.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image may be the best the film has ever looked
in either format, but the print source has inconsistent fleshtones throughout
and though color and many shots can be impressive, there is more grain than
expected for a film from 1976. It is
obvious that more work needs to be done to restore and clean the original
camera negative materials. Director of
Photography Ernest Day is one of the unsung heroes of this production, making
it look better than it might have in lesser hands. This is one of the highest profile films the
legendary camera operator/second unit director ever shot personally, along with
David Lean’s A Passage To India
(next up on Blu-ray) and the underrated, funny Revenge Of The Pink Panther.
The band ought to hire Robert Harris to do further restoration at
whatever expense is needed.
The sound
on this film in the past has been notoriously bad, offering one of the worst
old analog Dolby-A type/Dolby Stereo/Dolby System mixes ever made. Dolby has just arrived in theaters and was a
distorted disaster on the first music films it was used on, including the
Barbra Streisand A Star Is Born and
atrocious, notorious, shrill stereo “upgrade” to The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, both also
1976. The film was also issued in
4-track 35mm magnetic stereo prints in 1976 and after that batch, apparently
never again. Fortunately, the original
sound masters have finally been retrieved and a new Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix
(offered in both high definition formats) has been created that finally fixes just about all the
numerous problems the previous film and video versions were plagued with. It will be a revelation to fans of the band
and film, with a warmth and clarity we thought we’d never hear. The standard Dolby Digital 5.1 is no match
and 2.0 even less so, though TrueHD is sadly not available for the bonus songs,
in the extras, not in the film, from the same Madison Square Garden
performances.
In the
extras, those songs include Celebration
Day [Cutting Copy], Over The Hills
& Far Away (both never before released, Misty Mountain Top and The
Ocean. You also get the original
theatrical trailer, vintage TV footage of the band getting robbed during their
1973 New York City concert, 1973 Tampa News report of a concert they played
that broke a Beatles record and an archival BBC interview with Plant. Of course if you are lucky, you’ll land that
1976 Crowe interview on the copy you might find if you look hard enough, but that
is still a nice set of goods. At least
the film’s sound is finally top rate.
For more
on the band, try this link on a documentary examining the band entitled The Origins Of The Species:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4261/Led+Zeppelin+-+The+Origins+Of
- Nicholas Sheffo
