Features:

• DVD
• The Band

Editor Reviews:

Description:
It started as a concert. It became a celebration. Join an unparalleled lineup of rock superstars asthey celebrate The Band's historic 1976 farewell performance. Directed by Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Goodfellas), The Last Waltz is not only "the most beautiful rock film evermade" (New York Times) it's "one of the most important cultural events of the last two decades" (Rolling Stone)!

Amazon.com:
Martin Scorsese's 1978 capsule history of the Band is mixed with footage of the group's allegedly last performance (certainly their last performance as a quintet) in this particularly stylish concert film. Scorsese shoots the players and their sundry guests with the same flair and enthusiasm one can see in the later The Color of Money or Goodfellas. He also proves a good interviewer with Band members, particularly Robbie Robertson, whose sleepy-sexy good looks make a star-caliber impression in close-up. But the film's real hook is the stage show, which features a rotation of rock legends (Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, and so on) playing with the Band before a wildly appreciative audience. --Tom Keogh

Rating : - Love The Band, but the flaws in this film - and DVD version - can't be ignored
Let me just preface that I am a huge fan of The Band. I always preferred them to bands like Grateful Dead. Levon Helm's voice came straight out of the smoky, Civil War-era hills. While this movie looks good and sounds good, the abundance of post-gig doctoring (overdubs) hampers this document, in my book. Watch the left hand of the late, great bassist Rick Danko (RIP) during the Eric Clapton song - the shot where Danko is left (closest to the camera), with Robertson in the middle and Clapton on the right (background). Danko's hand (both of them, actually) don't match the sound. According to Levon Helm, the film was riddled with overdubs, but not by Helm. In Helm's autobiography, he talks about how he refused to record overdubs for his drumming and his voice for the movie. While I'm sure that much of the soundtrack is live, there's a good portion that isn't (much of it is evidenced by Danko's hands; curiously, Robertson's back or side is aimed at the camera for some of his soloing, too, which might raise some suspicion, although his frontal shots seem live), and for a musician, watching their hands not matching up to the sonics, well, it's a flaw that dampens the experience. I know almost every live album and DVD has some post-production tampering, but "The Last Waltz" has too many blatant examples. And speaking of the visuals, what is up with this DVD version's crop job? Originally, Scorsese's film crew, despite all the coke, did a pretty decent job of framing the musicians with the cameras, although now the fake letterboxing mat (black bars slapped onto the top and bottom of an already cropped, if not completely pan-and-scan/full-frame image, render Danko's bass and Robertson's guitar invisible for way too long. Here's hoping that a true widescreen version of this - and Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" - is reissued on DVD, with the full film negative image on the disc. Again, I love The Band. They - and The Band's fans - a DVD reissue done right. :)