A great one for fans and music lovers.
Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and Robert Plant. Four musicians who, in the late 60s formed a band that became a phenomenon, and is still regarded today as one of the greatest musical outfits in Western music: Led Zeppelin.
Although there have been myriad documentaries and books written about Zeppelin, this is the first authorized documentary, and one which concentrates on the music, rather than the sideline antics. Director Bernard MacMahon has honed his craft with the arts program Arena, and has made several films which take a deep-dive into an era or genre of music. So he is well placed to guide this piece of work.
Concentrating as it does on the period up to the release of Zeppelin II, Becoming Led Zeppelin explores the early influences of the four and their first years together forging what would eventually become a musical behemoth. Jones, Plant, and Page, all give interviews to camera, and John Bonham, who died in 1980, is represented with some interview audio which has previously not been heard. Talking of their childhoods, one is struck yet again by how young they all were when they discovered music, and started to perform professionally. Jones was the organist and choir-master at his local church at the age of 14! MacMahon spends some time allowing his subjects to wax lyrical (pardon the pun) about the music they loved and that became the foundation for their later work, not just the usual blues artists from the US but even performers such as Lonnie Donegan. It is heartwarming to see these sometimes forgotten pioneers given their due place in the pantheon.
Along with the interviews there are, of course, clips of early gigs, including some amateur footage which none of the band members themselves had even seen. And then there is the music, and plenty of it.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is definitely one for the fans, obviously, but is also an informative and engaging documentary for anyone interested in recent Western musical history. It could have gone a little more deeply into the music in terms of influences, composition, and production. These sections were perhaps the most interesting of the entire film, but there just weren’t quite enough of them. However this minor quibble does not detract from the generally well-researched, tightly edited, and respectful work by MacMahon and his team.
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