Oystein Albertsen

Worth watching but far from compulsory viewing. Like others here, I felt that this was an incomplete effort. There was little about the Band's output other than their two best albums and the Last Waltz. Although not as good, they did make decent songs outside of these albums and pretty much ignoring these made me somewhat non-plussed. Great to see photos and film from their early days, but I felt Robbie's missus were given a bit too much airtime, and trundling out "fellow stars" induces eye rolling in me due to the obviousness of a lot of their statements. I'd rather see some insightful commentary from well regarded music historians. It was certainly Robbie's version of events and I think he made some good points about careless living, yet I also understand where Levon Helm's anger comes from without a thorough dissection of this being done in this work. Like other correspondents have pointed out, the portrayal of the other bandmembers were pretty one-dimensional and if you knew nothing about them, you wouldn't get to know much about their individual stories either, beyond the footnoting being done. I settled on three stars due to the fantastic music they made, even though two is probably more appropriate based on the documentary value.