The "Cinema-ism" of Neil Young

Neil Young and Jonathan Demme
Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of "Heart of Gold" - 2006
(Click photo to enlarge)

The mutaul respect between Neil Young and filmmaker Jonathan Demme has been quite deep and evident for some time now.

And with their latest film together Journeys being released, they've done quite a few interviews together and separately. Here's a particularly interesting interview from
The Republic by Greg Kot:

Q: Jonathan, out of all the subjects and artists you could’ve focused on, why did you choose Neil’s music to explore in such depth?

Demme: Cinema.

Neil’s the most cinematic person that I can think of.

He writes cinematically, moves cinematically, walks cinematically, thinks and writes cinematically. I’m looking at him now and there is some cinema chip inside of him. (Young laughs). All these stories in these songs are different, and the characters he assumes are so different, he never repeats himself in the way he presents himself in the music. It’s this endless kind of thing. I have lots of ideas for movies. I would love to do a spoken word movie with Neil. He’s a human fountain of cinema.

I admire him so much — forget the music, he’s one of my all time life-enriching sources. I love his sensibilities as a filmmaker.

I know what he likes. We’re very free, open, when we work together.

More on Neil Young Journeys Film Premiere and Jonathan Demme and Neil Young.

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