CSNY Deja-Vu

Despite its title, CSNY DEJA VU is no baby-boomer nostalgia exercise. Chronicling Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 2006 tour, the film is a not just a concert movie but an engrossing exegesis on the myriad ways that entertainers, fans, soldiers, their families, right-wing radio hosts, and red- and blue-staters alike can feel about the Iraq War. Neil Young, who had just released the scathingly anti-war album LIVING WITH WAR, asked his sometime bandmates to join him for a set combining these new songs with the quartet's topical classics. As captured here, the band not only successfully reclaims its former protest mantle but tests the viability of such music in the 2000s. One of the film's dramatic highlights is a show in Atlanta where an encore featuring Young's blunt anthem, 'Let's Impeach the President,' sends a large swath of the crowd to the door in disgust. The footage brings to mind Dylan in 1966, except this time the issues concern blood and oil and not electricity and folk music. To his credit, Young--whom David Crosby calls 'a benevolent dictator'--probes a truly raw nerve in mainstream American entertainment. The documentary was produced and directed by Bernard Shakey--aka Young himself--but the presence of ABC News' Michael Cerre lends a credibility that pushes the film beyond the realm of self-promotion. Cerre is an admitted fan of CSNY, but as a journalist several times embedded with American G. I. s in Iraq he provides a needed insider's perspective. Politics aside, the film captures the aging quartet, warts and all. Riveting musical moments such as ripping guitar duels between Young and Stephen Stills or the ever-stellar harmonizing of Crosby and Graham Nash are humorously undercut by the image of Stills tripping over a monitor onstage. Intimate backstage footage reveals a charming camaraderie that has clearly kept this band ticking for so many years--even when the fans are walking out.