Critical Reaction and Popularity
For its New York premiere, Cinema I was equipped with a quadrophonic sound system hired from Showco in Dallas. For the West Coast premieres, no such audio boosting was employed. These premieres, along with the London premiere, were attended by the members of the band.
The film performed well at the box office, grossing an estimated $10 million by 1977. Despite this, the film was reviewed negatively by critics for its perceived amateurish production and self-indulgent content, with the fantasy sequences in particular coming in for some of the harshest criticism. The film was particularly unsuccessful in the UK, where the band had not performed live for over two years as a result of being on tax exile. The band were thus unable to promote themselves at home, leaving them out of the public spotlight.
However, amongst fans the film has retained its popularity. Until the release of Led Zeppelin DVD in 2003, The Song Remains the Same was the only official live visual document that followers of the band were able to access. It became a cult favourite at late-night movie houses, and its subsequent release on video and then DVD has ensured a growing base of fans.
Many of these fans, and some members of the band itself, regard the performances filmed at Madison Square Garden as merely average for the time, coming as they did at the end of a long and exhausting tour, but nonetheless representative of the generally high standard of the band's live performances during this era. In an interview he gave with New Musical Express in November 1976, Page stated:
The Song Remains The Same is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up.
Page made good on his promise. When reviewing material for Led Zeppelin DVD in 2003, he decided to include footage from this same series of concerts.
However, other members of the band were less charitable, with Jones later admitting that the film was "a massive compromise" and Plant denouncing it as "a load of bollocks."
For all of its technical faults, many today view the film as an interesting historical document that captured the band at a particular point in time when its popularity was at its peak, and, on a more general level, as an accurate representation of the excesses of the music and show-business industries in the 1970s. In a review published in Mojo magazine following the film's 2007 reissue, James McNair gave the film four out of five stars and wrote:
The good news is that Jimmy Page and fellow production wunderkind Kevin Shirley have been meticulous as regards quality control. The three-night, July 1973 stint at Madison square garden that fuelled the film's original soundtrack has been plundered afresh ... In truth, 2003's DVD package houses better live performances, but if you want to catch Zeppelin in all their preposterous, 'because we can' glory, The Song Remains ... is the one.
Read more about this topic: The Song Remains The Same (film)
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