CSNY: Déjà Vu.

"Directed by [Neil] Young (credited as Bernard Shakey), CSNY: Déjà Vu presents the foursome's summer of dove (though the hatchets buried between them seem to have shallow graves) as part tour documentary, part polemic for-and-by-the-people," writes Michelle Orange in the Voice.

When, at SF360, Dennis Harvey previewed a recent screening in San Francisco, he noted that Young's "message is likely to induce a whole lot more fist-pumping than cat-calling. Not so some of the audiences depicted in Déjà Vu, notably those in Atlanta, where the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reunion tour's unabashedly agitative content - one song performed is 'Let's Impeach the President' [video] and disillusioned Iraq war vets are interviewed - sparks some outrage by 'patriotic' attendees who didn't want anti-war protesting (at least not against the current war) getting in the way of those nostalgic songs and four-part harmonies."

Updated through 7/27.

At Slant, Andrew Schenker picks it up from there: "If the rest of Young's film rarely reaches the same level of intensity, it remains largely compelling in its consideration of the struggles of musicians to meld their art with a political message and present it to a largely indifferent public who just wants to rock out.... [A]s an inspiring call to arms for engaged artwork in a cultural climate that demands unthinking entertainment (even as the film acknowledges the ultimate inability of artists to effect real social change), CSNY: Déjà Vu can be rather heady indeed."

Ben Sisario talks with Young and the band for the New York Times.

Updates, 7/25: In the New York Times, Neil Genzlinger finds the doc "has some delicious moments, but you never quite shake the feeling that it's documenting a tempest in a teapot."

"Some of the new songs are genuinely touching, while others are a bit creaky; portraits of Iraq vets and their families deliver undeniable pathos," writes Stephen Garrett in Time Out New York. "The core of this self-congratulatory call to arms, though, is a portrait of a geezer protest group still singing sweet songs but desperate for a voice."

"Young's ambitious combination of rockumentary and war protest piece... is, true to form, a bit of a mess," writes Andrew Wright in the Stranger. "Unlike his albums, however, there's no spidery whammy-bar wizardry here to balance things out."

"Young intends to show a country divided, but the noise bleeds as if this was a cable-TV shoutfest. and the music isn't much of a relief either, mostly because Young keeps cutting away from the performances," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club.

Tom Huddleston talks with Young for Time Out.

Update, 7/27: Jeffrey M Anderson at Cinematical on the Atlanta crowd: "One man suggests that we shouldn't criticize the government because 'they're smarter than us.' Another girl sums up Young's performance: 'It was too political.' One interviewer brings up the Dixie Chicks, to which a concertgoer responds: 'If it was the Dixie Chicks we wouldn't be here.' Both CSNY: Déjà vu and the 2006 Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up and Sing have that in common: that kind of hysterical, instantaneous mob mentality that disregards rhyme or reason."

Posted by dwhudson at July 23, 2008 1:17 PM