Crosby, Stills, et al. on tour, still rockin' and rebellin'
It's not the Dixie Chicks, this movie about a popular band spouting off against a president and his war. CSNY: Deja Vu features, as one wag calls 'em, "four balding hippie millionaires" - '60s music icons David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young, on the road in 2006 and railing against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the U.S.-led invasion into Iraq.
It's not the Dixie Chicks, this movie about a popular band spouting off against a president and his war.
CSNY: Deja Vu
features, as one wag calls 'em, "four balding hippie millionaires" - '60s music icons David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young, on the road in 2006 and railing against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the U.S.-led invasion into Iraq.
With Young in the driver's seat (it's "a benevolent dictatorship," explains Crosby, and "Neil is in charge"), the senior citizens of CSN&Y took to the tour bus, singing songs with such subtle titles as "Shock and Awe" and "Let's Impeach the President." The reaction from fans wasn't always supportive. When the Living With War tour rolled into Atlanta and the group kicked in with the Bush-bashing tunes, boos and curses erupted. The camera captures a few of the more disgruntled ticket buyers as they angrily quit the arena. These folks had come for an evening of soothing '60s nostalgia, and got a political sermon instead.
But Young and company make the point that they were
always
political, singing songs of protest against the war in Vietnam and the shootings at Kent State.
CSNY: Deja Vu
was directed by Young, using his
nom de film
Bernard Shakey, and he's no Barbara Kopple (the Oscar-winning director of
Shut Up and Sing
, the Dixie Chicks documentary). Young's idea to "embed" a former ABC war correspondent, Mike Cerre, on the tour seems like a bad joke at first, particularly as Cerre starts to draw dramatic analogies between a music supergroup's road trip and a U.S. military mission into hostile lands.
But Cerre finds Iraq war veterans in the concert crowds, and as Young - er, Shakey - shifts the focus from himself and his bandmates to several of these veterans, the film achieves a level of unexpected power and poignancy.
CSNY: Deja Vu *** (Out of four stars)
Directed by Bernard Shakey. With David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Mike Cerre, Bo Alexander and Karen Meredith. Distributed by Roadside Attractions.
Running time:
1 hour, 36 mins.
Parent's guide:
R (profanity, images of war, adult themes)
Playing at:
Ritz at the Bourse