When, in the spring of 2005, the singer-songwriter Neil Young was found to have a brain aneurysm, he responded with a burst of creativity. In the few weeks between his diagnosis and the operation that would save his life, he wrote and recorded an album, Prairie Wind. We are given this much context for the concert movie Neil Young: Heart of Gold in a few snatched and mostly rather banal interviews with his long-time collaborators in the initial minutes of the picture. The rest of the film is entirely composed of concert footage, captured by the director Jonathan Demme over two evening performances of the new material and some old at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

Practically the only words we hear from Young are the lyrics to his songs and the yarns he spins to a rapt audience between them. This is all about the music, and the musicianship is exemplary. But the performance is as safe and comforting as a patchwork quilt. It’s a stark contrast to Demme’s previous concert film, the dark, dynamic Talking Heads movie Stop Making Sense.

Understandably, Young was jolted by his illness to look back and take stock of his life. Much of the new material deals with his mortality, or nostalgia for youth and health. But his anecdotes are of the soft-focus and sentimental variety; sun-drenched memories of growing up on “Daddy’s chicken farm”. It’s an idealised Americana as cloyingly insincere as a Norman Rockwell painting.

That said, there are moments that grab you — little catches in Young’s unique semi- strangled delivery that sound like a yelp of raw emotion. But there’s nothing here that adds up to a cinematic experience and nothing you’ll gain from watching the film in a movie theatre rather than on DVD.

WENDY IDE

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