Very disappointing...

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is a one of the great rock music films of all time, with such a cool history of how it was made that there could easily be enough material out there for a book and a documentary on how the making of it came together.When it came out, movie theater sound systems were pushed to the max to deliver a front row seat for Led Zep fans who could not wait to see it.Whilst most people these days see it on a small screen, it would be a great idea to re-release the a remastered film theatrically.

The Song Remains The Same gives everyone a front-row seat, center, to see Led Zeppelin live. OK. This may not matter much now, but, back in 1976 it was a very big deal. Very.Back in the 1970s when Led Zeppelin reigned supreme as the ruling gods of heavy-metal rock'n'roll any fan would've gladly given their eye-teeth to attend one of their concerts.This film documents the band's 1973, sold-out concert at Madison Square Gardens, NYC. Besides there being plenty of hard-drivin' on-stage footage, this film also contains several backstage clips of the band members, plus 4 fantasy sequences (featuring the band members individually) that are basically foolish nonsense. But all is easily forgiven if you happen to be a Led Zeppelin fan.As an added bonus, the viewer also gets a rare chance to see each of the band members, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, at home, back in England, with their respective families.On stage Led Zeppelin (who are in top form) put on a satisfactory show for a roaring, enthusiastic audience. In this film's 2.5-hour running time they manage to deliver all of their greatest tunes, including a 23-minute-long rendition of "Dazed and Confused".For anyone who enjoys Led Zeppelin, this is a highly-recommended film.And, no, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but, Led Zeppelin do not play "Stairway To Heaven" backwards.

Pretension runs all through director Peter Clifton's 137 minute long, 1976 quasi-documentary on Led Zeppelin and a series of three concert performances at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, during July of 1973, called The Song Remains The Same. Aside from the concert footage, the film weaves assorted silly fantasy sections into the film, as well as footage of backstage goings on, such as security guards beating rowdy fans, the theft of $203,000 from the band's safe deposit box at the hotel they were staying at, and band manager Peter Grant's bullying of various Garden personnel over matters trivial and not, among others. The film was not the first attempt at a true 'rockumentary,' but it was the first rockumentary to try and add extraneous fictive material so the whole could be seen as a work of art, apart and above the actual music. Prior to The Song Remains The Same such films, like Michael Wadleigh's 1970 documentary Woodstock, on the famed 1969 rock festival, were basically strictly journalistic endeavors or attempts at cinema veritè. Not so with this film. And that's its fatal flaw.While the music, and even the band's lapses into self-indulgence, are great, the film's cinematic pretensions bring the whole effort down into a barely passable cinematic mediocrity. In a sense, parts of the film play out almost like a precursor to Rob Reiner's seminal 1984 'mockumentary' classic This Is Spinal Tap. Numerous shots where the band is actually 'live' in concert are mixed in with scenes of them on stages at Shepperton Studios that do not resemble their American venues, and numerous other little alterations had to be made. The film would have been so much better had they simply filmed the concerts, then did the fantasy sequences and combined them, rather than the time and money wasting rigmarole that ensued.Unlike the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews for a bad film, The Song Remains The Same, a merely mediocre film, was almost routinely savagely attacked from Day One, mainly for the fantasy sequences. That said, like the Beatles film, the Led Zeppelin film did well at the box office. Unlike A Hard Day's Night, though, The Song Remains The Same was, indeed, a highly influential film. Almost all concert films and rockumentaries that have come since have this film's DNA stamped on it, for the good or the ill. And, unlike the Beatles film, this film's improvs are restricted to the musical stage, where Plant and Page were masters of that art form.

Despite having been a fan of Led Zeppelin (owning all of their studio albums on CD) for the past 13 years and having had this film on VHS for years, it is only now on the occasion of Robert Plant's concert in Malta that I decided to give it a spin. Its somewhat maligned reputation and substantial length is mainly what kept me away for so long but, now that I've seen it, while certainly not the best rock concert movie, it is not worthless either. The band's stage performance itself (filmed at the Madison Square Garden) was generally held as being subpar and rumor has it that, for a time, they tried to block this film's release but, again, I'd say their live act is, at the very least, above-average.The movie takes its name from the opening track on the band's then-current 1973 album, "Houses Of The Holy" which I myself found disappointing at first and decidedly anti-climactic after their majestic untitled fourth album…but I eventually warmed up to the album on subsequent listens. The film contains 10 songs from their first 5 albums – including the band's signature tunes "Whole Lotta Love" and "Stairway To Heaven" and an overblown nearly half-hour rendition of "Dazed And Confused"! – which is occasionally accompanied by fantasy footage of the band members in mythical attire; I'm not too sure what the idea behind this was but the effect is more distracting than inspiring and, in any case, the best fantasy sequence is at the film's very start with their late drummer John Bonham and their bear-like manager Peter Grant dressed up as mobsters and taking out a rival clan in their hide-out in an outrageously bloody fashion! P.S. I can't post this review without making a few comments on the Robert Plant concert I attended later on: the 59-year old Plant, understandably no longer the bare-chested Adonis of THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME, took to the stage at around 22:40 and proceeded for the next 90 minutes to belt out several tracks from his latest acclaimed solo album, "Mighty Rearranger", a surprising cover of Love's "7 And 7 Is" and, naturally, a handful of Led Zeppelin classics which, tinged with his now-trademark World Music rhythms were all but unrecognizable at first! Curiously enough, he did not elect to sing the band's anthem, "Stairway To Heaven", or any songs off of my favorite Led Zeppelin record, the 1975 double-album "Physical Graffiti". Having been preceded by a mini-performance by John Bonham's sister Deborah (who was quite impressive herself, in a Janis Joplin-way), I was half-expecting Plant to duet with her on one of my favorite Led Zeppelin tunes, "The Battle Of Evermore" but, alas, this did not come to pass, either. Amusingly, an hour into the performance, Plant stunned the audience with an abrupt "Goodbye Malta" after which he and his backing band quit the stage…only to return a couple of moments later for an encore consisting of among others "Whole Lotta Love" which really brought the house down. Finally, an unexpected personal thrill I had during the concert was getting to meet, indirectly, John Bonham's mother – who was there to support her daughter and, despite being in her late seventies (I guess), could be seen to mildly headbang and sway to the music all through her set!!