Rose Colored Look at the Stairway to Heaven

(090723) Becoming Led Zeppelin is a strong and exhilarating new documentary that covers the first few years in the career of one of the most iconic rock bands of the 70s: Led Zeppelin. The film compares favorably with other recent music docs like Personality Crisis: One Night Only about the recently deceased David Johansen, Moonage Daydream about David Bowie, Billie Eilish: The World is a Little Blurry, and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. But it is far less entertaining and significant than the recent Bob Dylan biopic: A Complete Unknown unless you are a hard rock junkie.

Led Zeppelin often is credited along with Blue Cheer, Cream, Black Sabbath, The Who and Deep Purple with creating the whole rock genre of heavy metal. The band was famously shy and they avoided being filmed. Also, their manager famously enforced a media ban after much negative media criticism which made the band seem enigmatic and mysterious, their ambiguous sometimes supernatural themed lyrics added to their mystique. But the film maker, Bernard MacMahon and his team assembled all the hard-to-find existing footage they could locate and combined it with period photos, commentary and fan footage to create the film. Most incredibly they also found an unknown interview with the super reclusive John Bonham who hardly ever spoke to the press.

Since the film had to be approved by the band, it is not the definitive, all-encompassing Zepplin film which has yet to be made. It lacks almost all of the negative aspects of the story including the band’s alleged mistreatment of women and their manager Peter Grant’s brutality and violence. Partially because of their negative reputation with groupies, the band as widely criticized by women’s rights advocates for how they allegedly mistreated females. So, it’s a bit surprising to see a photo of feminist icon, Germaine Greer appearing to be having a friendly chat with John Paul Jones. Fame makes strange bed fellows.

The film begins with stories about the pasts of the individual members. We see some black and white photos of the members in their school uniforms as we hear them reflect on their childhoods. John Paul Jones discusses how much he loved playing organ in a local church which makes him seem humble, delighting in life’s simple pleasures (In his post Zeppelin work with Them Crooked Vultures and Diamonda Galas was underrated and also outstanding). The film also shows Robert Plant talking about how he switched from studying accounting to playing music. He is later seen raving on a 1977 Midnight Special interview with J.J.  Jackson about how John Paul Jones’ keyboard flourishes added immensely to the band’s later recordings.

The films biography section mostly focuses on the part of the band’s leader, Jimmy Page who is regarded universally as one of the finest rock guitar virtuosos along with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jeff Beck. Even people who hate Led Zeppelin like Keith Richards and Pete Townsend admit in interviews that he was a brilliant player. He made a name for himself with his groundbreaking leads in the Yardbirds as well as significant session work on records by everyone from the Kinks to Lulu to Joe Cocker. Page discusses how after the Yardbirds (one of the best of the "British Invasion" bands) imploded, he decided to fulfill the tour dates with a new band lineup which became Led Zeppelin. Page recruited a largely unknown hippy singer, Robert Plant from Band of Joy along with his friend John Bonham. Once John Paul Jones joined the band the classic lineup was complete.

Not everyone loved the band at first and Keith Moon who played with them a bit, said they would go down like a lead balloon or lead zeppelin which is how the band got their name. Oddly enough the band first conquered America and then they later became popular in England, and lastly with critics. In fact they were hated by the many critics initially, but the same rock magazines that panned their early work complained that the later albums were not as great as the first two. One critic slagged off the band as Cream rip-offs (which was arguably the bands prototype), and the film quotes one critic who disparagingly dismisses Robert Plant as “The Tom Jones of the Midlands,” and Jones as widely seen as a show biz hack at the time.

The band’s rise was quick and meteoric. They formed in 1969 and within eighteen months their second album was so popular that it knocked the Beatles’ Abbey Road out of the top spot on the Billboard charts. They also broke many live concert attendance records. During the rest of the decade, they arguably became the dominant rock band at least commercially until they broke up shortly after their drummer, John Bonham died of alcohol poisoning in 1980. Bonham’s drug and depression problems are not discussed in the film.

I wish they had a bit more commentary on the individual songs, but the unearthed concert footage in the film is undeniably exciting. Two highlights include brilliant versions of "Whole Lotta Love" which is filled with frenzied feedback, and "Dazed and Confused" which rocks as hard as any music from that era aside from the MC5. Other highlights include performance footage of a soft, contemplative version of "Ramble On", a totally electrifying "Communication Breakdown" and a nifty cover of Eddie Cochran’s "C’mon Everybody" which was also famously covered by the Sex Pistols.

The biggest limitation of the film is it only covers only the first few years of the band and first two albums, so those expecting a definitive doc on their whole careers will be disappointed. Some of the most interesting music came out later starting with Led Zeppelin IV which is often considered their masterpiece. The band became even more eclectic and strayed farther from their heavy hard rock roots later on albums like Physical Graffiti and in Through The Out Door. But it would be difficult to imagine a better portrayal of their embryonic early period. This film is bound to please both fans of Led Zeppelin and classic hard rock in general.

Becoming Led Zepplin is scheduled to stream on Vox starting on April 4 as well as Amazon, followed by other digital platforms. It is also still playing at selected theatres and I would not be surprised if it returned to theatres for a revival in specialty theatres.