DVD Region 2
97 minuten
Inspired by Robertson's 2017 bestselling memoir Testimony, ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND is a confessional, cautionary, and sometimes humorous tale of Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music. The film blends rare archival footage and interviews with many of Robertson's friends and collaborators, including Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Scorsese, Taj Mahal, Peter Gabriel, David Geffen and Ronnie Hawkins, among others.
A new documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, directed by Daniel Roher, is a warm, poignant take on The Band's story — again, as the subtitle suggests, from Robertson's point of view. It often feels like a direct response to Helm's version of the story; in extensive interviews, Robertson heaps praise on his bandmates and reminisces wistfully about their best years together. Accompanied by beautiful photos of recording sessions and Big Pink, the group's house in Woodstock, New York, the film is nostalgic and elegiac, and adds to the sense that the recording of their first two albums was a musician's utopia — deeply collaborative, done on their own terms. There are the usual rock documentary talking heads — with the likes of Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison appearing — as well as archival interview clips from The Band's members.
The gems here are the tales of Dominique Bourgeois, Robertson's ex-wife, a French-Canadian journalist who met him in Paris while on tour with Dylan in 1966, and who then lived with him during the making of The Band's classic records. It's still rare to see women represented as essential to the rock scene of that era, and Dominique Robertson's contributions recenter the Big Pink experience around relationships and place, rather than solely music.
The film's most significant contribution to the group's overall legacy is its extensive coverage of the earliest adventures of The Band, when they were still The Hawks and backing up the great rock wild-man Ronnie Hawkins in clubs around Toronto and on tours through America. Plenty of fresh photos and a television performance from those years help add detail and texture to a formative period for rock and roll, the pre-Beatles '60s, that's often mischaracterized as lacking grit.
Once Were Brothers presents that era as historically on par with any show The Band performed with Dylan — which, in the end, might be its most significant contribution.
Includes subtitles for the Hard Of Hearing
FEATURING: Robbie Robertson, Martin Scorsese, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, Jann Wenner, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison, Dominique Roberts
