There is nothing wrong with the new documentary about The Band that a seance wouldn't fix. Or at least some divine cinematic intervention.
Opening Friday, "Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band" tells the true - and truly game-changing - story of the astonishing five-man roots rock 'n' roll outfit known simply as "The Band." Or part of that story, anyway.
You may think you don't know The Band, but you do. The Band - guitarist Robbie Robertson, drummer Levon Helm, bassist Rick Danko, and keyboardists Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel - was the group that backed Bob Dylan during his polarizing 1966 tour, when he brought his new electric sound to the dubious folkie masses. The Band's pioneering early albums - most notably 1968's "Music from the Big Pink" and 1969's "The Band" - gave decades of music fans such indelible songs as "The Weight" (featuring the refrain "Take a load off, Fanny/Take a load for free"), "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Up on Cripple Creek."
All of this history is chronicled in "Once Were Brothers," but from a limited (and limiting) point of view.
Through archival photos, some choice performance clips, and insightful interviews with Robertson and many celebrity fans (including Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton and Taj Mahal), the 102-minute documentary treats us to a colorful cruise of the group's career, as the four Canadians and one Arkansan (Helm) go from backing rockabilly showman Ronnie Hawkins to becoming the kind of rock stars that end up on the cover of Time magazine.
The film gives us the what, where and when of the group's career, all of it to a soundtrack of indelible music. But it does not really give us the who.
And without the who, you do not have The Band.