The Last Waltz – Co-Presented with the JCCSF
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Band’s legendary farewell concert, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz captures an unforgettable night at Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, creating one of cinema’s most influential music documentaries.
Description
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Band’s legendary farewell concert, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz captures an unforgettable night at Bill Graham’s iconic Winterland Ballroom, a historical cornerstone of San Francisco’s rock music scene. On Thanksgiving Day in 1976, The Band took the stage alongside an extraordinary lineup of music icons, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, and Emmylou Harris, for what would become one of rock’s most celebrated farewell concerts. Through a blend of live performances and candid conversations, Scorsese transforms the event into a deeply cinematic reflection on The Band’s legacy and the evolution of rock and roll. Released in 1978, the same year Winterland closed its doors, The Last Waltz preserves the legacy of one of San Francisco’s most legendary cultural landmarks while standing among the most influential music documentaries ever made.
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Biographies
Martin Scorsese is an Academy Award-winning Director and one of the most influential filmmakers working today. He has directed critically acclaimed, award-winning films including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, which won an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture, Shutter Island, and Hugo for which he received a Golden Globe for Best Director. His 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street received DGA, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Director, as well as a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for Best Film.
His subsequent feature films include Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Scorsese has directed numerous documentaries, including the Peabody Award-winning No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and Elia Kazan: A Letter to Elia; as well as Italianamerican, The Last Waltz, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, Public Speaking, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, and Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. He also co-directed The 50 Year Argument (2014) with his longtime documentary editor David Tedeschi and directed the documentary series Pretend It’s a City (2021). Scorsese received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special for George Harrison: Living in the Material World. Scorsese executive produced the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, winning an Emmy and DGA Award for directing the pilot episode. He is the founder and chair of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of motion picture history.