The guests are pure gold: Dr. John ("Such a Night"), Ronnie Hawkins, Joni Mitchell ("Coyote"), Neil Young ("Helpless"), Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters ("Mannish Boy"), Neil Diamond ("Dry Your Eyes"... by the way, what is HE doing here?), Van Morrison ("Caravan"), Bob Dylan ("Baby Let Me Follow You Down" and "Forever Young"), plus many others supporting the Band itself, such as The Staples, Eric Clapton, Emmilou Harris, and minor appearances by Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood for the grand finale, when they playied all together what at that time had become a National anthem: "I Shall Be Released" (by B. Dylan).

So The Band decided to quit, Robbie Robertson spoke. Robbie Robertson is a Canadian born guitarist with strong Navajo origins. He speaks, then he looks down in silence and keeps his word, like real indians do.
I admire him for this.
The Stones had said many times that they would quit music at 33. Now they're almost 66.
Robbie and his band were about 33 to 37 when they said that they would quit. And they did it.

Watching the movie you will appreciate realizing how simple and plain these guys had stayied over the years, in spite of the hard music world they lived in and the really famous people they attended.
They walked straight in their boots and didn't care about the others, that's perhaps one reason why they didn't become overly famous: John Lennon, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, and many more, they all used Dylan's nose and singing punctuation, at certain times of their career.
However, all the Band players singed, but you'll never hear one of them resembling Dylan at any time: and they lived together for ten years! That's meaningful of how little they were exposed to be influenced, or conditioned, by others.

We mustn't forget that this is a Martin Scorsese movie. You'll really appreciate the director's editing: energic, fast, introspective, creative.
The style is that of Mean Streets, or Taxi Driver, a really young and talented one. If it wasn't for him the movie was never going to be what it has become: a little jewel.
As a concession to the director, Robbie Robertson expressely composed the Waltz Theme that opens and closes the movie. It is so fit to San Francisco!

The disk offers a wide commentary on the making of the film, which is very interesting to watch: basically, Robbie Robertson contacted Martin Scorsese a few months before the concert with no idea of what to do and no money to do it.
Scorsese accepted to do it, whatever it was he had to do, and asked for no money.
This spontaneity and comraderie is well portrayied and showed the best results in a movie that is fresh, lively and completely away from any business logic.
They did what they did, whatever it was supposed to be, just for the pleasure of doing it.
As usual these things are the best, in the end.
Scorsese , some 20 years later, explains in "The Making Of" that he used six 35mm cameras, which were positioned in certaiun strategic points of the theater, almost unnoticeable to the audience.
The audience were anaware that a movie was being shot, that night.
Then some funny anectdoes come to his mind, such as the difficulty to communicate with the camera operators, due to the really loud music, and the subsequent uncertainty that things were going on right.
After several hours of shooting, eventually all the cameras' engines burned down, but luckily the concert was filmed long enough to make a full movie out of it. Some parts of the concerts, however, were missed due to the cameras breaking down.
Robbie Robertson too, now in his fifties, contributes to the narration of that special event in a separate interview.

It was 1976. That same year, if remember well, Richard Manuel committed suicide. He was the one singing "I Shall Be Released" during the Band concerts. You can hear his version of the song in "Platoon" by Oliver Stone (or was it "Good Morning America"? urgh!).
Watching the movie I have come to know a little bit of this man and I felt sorry for him.
In 1976 rock music was starting to turn again, soon to embrace punk, reggae and funky styles, drifting progressively from the romanticism that had engineered it in the earlier decade.
Hippies, synthetizers and electronic drums would change further, in the 80's, the mission of this style of music, adapting it to the sheer economical logics of the Business Machine.