In what is being described as a docu-concert film, Becoming Led Zeppelin is technically the first sanctioned film about the seminal rock band. Directed by Bernard MacMahon (American Epic) and co-written with his regular filmmaking partner Allison McGourty, the movie only covers the initial formation and rise of the band, from their meeting in the summer of 1968 through their second album and tour in 1970.
Using a staggering amount of rare and unseen performance footage, an unheard audio interview from the late drummer John Bonham, and new interviews with surviving members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, the hybrid film spends about a third of its two-hour running time on what the band members were doing musically before Zeppelin formed, from session work to other bands the members were in prior.
This is the origin story, but it puts the music that Zeppelin came out of the gate with in the context of the times and the members' very different career paths. Sure, it was American blues that bound them, but there were so many other pieces that went into forming the visceral sound that their first album gave the world.
The lengths that the filmmakers have gone to to unearth these personal stories and creative exercises is impressive. And wisely, the film frequently allows entire songs to play out, instead of just using snippets. Led Zeppelin famously didn’t allow any singles to be released from their first album—they wanted people and radio station to play the entire album with each listen, and the result was a star-making first tour of America that melded Page’s psychedelic edge with the pounding rhythm section and Plant’s soaring vocals, each element of which got its moment to shine on record and in concert.
If you were alive and aware of the band’s machinations at the time, there might not be much here that you don’t know. But if not, Becoming Led Zeppelin is an immersion into their process. We get to know the band members as they get to know each other. The film is not told from a fan’s perspective; instead, it puts us in the room with the four as they are experiences each new phase of their new and highly successful career.
The fact that the band has very little footage of them available from the earliest days didn’t help the filmmakers, but they find creative ways around that limitation that still allow us to feel like we’re getting to know this famously private band quite intimately. Weirdly enough, the new interviews are the least interesting part of the film, but they are still key to understanding what was going on in the minds of each member at the time.
I suppose there’s still more story to tell, but once you get past these first couple albums, fame, partying, drugs, and other deviant behavior creeps into the band’s repertoire, and that’s when their story starts to get dark and feel like a cliche (or perhaps the template for the cliche to come); the times documented here are innocent (relatively speaking), conflict-free, and joyous. It’s a wonderful, fascinating journey that should be seen in the loudest theater available to you.
The film is now playing in IMAX theaters and opens everywhere on Friday, February 14.
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