Review: CSNY: Déjà Vu

Subtitled after their 1970 “Déjà Vu” number, this on-the-road concert doc and anti-war essay shows David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young crossing the U.S. and Canada on their “Freedom of Speech 2006” tour. It’s really Neil Young’s gig driven by his “Living With War” CD. He produces, directs, writes and narrates. One band member calls his rule a “benevolent dictatorship,” but that’s OK because “he thinks about this stuff all the time.” That stuff is the Iraq and Afghanistan War, the 2006 U.S. elections, and that whole Vietnam thing back when the band CSN&Y formed in 1969. The band is good-natured about their geezerdom, as Young pushes parallels with protest movements of old. One point well made: Bush never brought back the draft since it would have mobilized an anti-war movement like the last one. Instead, a stop-loss policy contains dissent under the commander-in-chief—and the country’s highest-echelon Vietnam dodger. One smart move was bringing along TV news correspondent Mike Cerre: “My cameraman and I began to see ourselves as the recon team finding out the mood of the crowd, what they were thinking, how they were reacting, what was stirring them—and that wound up making the performances even more powerful because there was a kind of feedback loop.” The music was better in Young’s “Heart of Gold” concert doc, and the story of a band under fire was more insightful in Barbara Kopple’s Dixie Chicks doc “Shut Up and Sing.” But “CSNY: Deja Vu” is a useful report on pop political culture in wartime. Ends with Neil Young’s arrangement of “America the Beautiful” performed by the 100 Voices Choir and a “Thanks to the United States Armed Forces.” With Stephen Colbert, Gold Star Mother Karen Meredith, Iraq vet turned Congressman Patrick Murphy, Iraq vet and Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth, Iraq vet and folk singer Josh Hisle and a bunch of pissed-off early exits who had no idea they’d hear a song titled “Let’s Impeach the President.” (Bill Stamets)