Neil Young: Heart of Gold

The result is a performance film that conjures a vision of American life as moving, funny and rueful as John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln.

The concert film has never looked or sounded classier than Jonathan Demme's superbly crafted Neil Young: Heart of Gold.

Demme is in such perfect sync with Young's music that even the painted prairie backdrop (and the painted farmhouse interior screen, complete with hearth, that slides in front of it) only makes you roll your eyes in retrospect.

With its varied close-ups and wide shots of the performers and a series of interviews with several of the musicians as they prepare to perform, Heart of Gold is a traditional concert film. But a traditional concert film starring Neil Young brings a layer of emotion to the medium that's rarely seen.

At one point, during one of his occasional verbal rambles, he (Young) says half-jokingly, half-defensively that he's got some love songs left in him. This film, which is at once a valentine from one artist to another and a valentine from a musician to his audience, is surely proof that he does.

Dropping in amusing anecdotes and tender memories, a deeply reflective Young revisits - and often reinterprets - both his recent and classic work.

A schmaltzy filmed record of a Nashville concert given by the legendary former rocker, who has morphed into the new Kenny Rogers.