Neil Young Trunk Show

“If you’re a fan of the indomitable Canadian rocker then you want to see Neil Young Trunk Show on the big screen, for sure.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Another consummate concert film that is easily the equal of [Demme’s] previous Neil Young film, Heart of Gold, and his classic Talking Heads feature, Stop Making Sense. Trunk Show gives you the profound impression of wandering within [Neil Young’s] unhinged psyche.… It’s an unholy tantrum that Demme treats, quite rightly, like a miracle.”—Time Out New York

Academy Award–winning director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), who previously filmed Neil Young for Heart of Gold, once again captures Young’s musical and spiritual soul—this time during two shows at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, during the Chrome Dreams II tour. Young surrounds himself with his favorite instruments, played at whim, and a stage set filled with personal icons: a small-scale model of a guitar shop, a red phone, and other items. The stage set suggests a favorite place where Young is able to create his music exactly as he wants, supported by longtime touring band friends Ben Keith, Ralph Molina, Rick Rosas, Pegi Young, and Anthony “Sweet Pea” Crawford, plus an onstage painter portrayed by Eric Johnson.

Young and company offer delicate acoustic numbers (“Sad Movies” and “Mexico”), mesmerizing electric travelogues into the artist’s own psyche (“No Hidden Path”), searing, chaotic anthems (“Like a Hurricane” and “Cinnamon Girl”), and rarely performed pieces that provide glimpses of Young’s less public persona (“Kansas” and “Ambulance Blues”). Shot with a mix of mostly handheld video and film cameras, Trunk Show presents the kinetic reality of a Neil Young performance in breathtakingly intimate fashion. Young and his band are captured with great immediacy, often in dramatically long takes that let the viewer experience the star opening up his heart song by song, and then blowing it all away in heated, uninhibited displays of rock and roll power. (82 mins., video)

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