When I went to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour at my local independent cinema on a Sunday night in late October, I felt like I was missing something. And I was: it was the audience. I can’t recall the last time I watched a movie alone in a cinema, but it was likely for a much less popular film than this highly anticipated event. However, as I settled into my seat and let the experience take over, it turned out to be a surprisingly intimate affair—just Taylor and me. It’s no wonder that the 33-year-old singer-songwriter, at the height of her influence and career, takes center stage in this 169-minute film. The performances are compiled from the first three of six shows in August at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Los Angeles. They are seamlessly woven together both cinematically and musically, with each chapter featuring songs and dance routines from Swift’s ten studio albums. Each segment is introduced on screen with the album title and visually defined by elaborate costume changes and magical set transformations, making the show as much a piece of theater as it is cinema.
But the audience seemed absent. Those close to the stage, alongside the catwalk pier, were submerged in the glow of countless iPhones. The rest, stretching out to the upper terraces of the stadium, appeared as tiny, starlit circles. Occasionally, the film cuts to devoted fans—mostly women, many dressed like Taylor Swift—singing along flawlessly. The most intimate communal moment occurs when a girl of about five or six is brought up to the stage for a blessing. Swift bends down, embraces the child, and places her black hat on the girl’s too-small head, causing an emotional crowd reaction. This was a global, stadium-sized love-in.
Concert films came into their own in the 1970s. The format was focused on capturing the essence of live performances and showcasing the skill and effort of serious musicians. The booming music industry of that era was irresistible to Hollywood, and concert films often served as promotional tools for record sales, sometimes tied directly to live albums. Despite using multiple performances, post-production overdubbing, and early videotape effects, these films retained the live feel of their central performances. They were usually shot with simple camera setups by crews from television advertising and the music business rather than the film industry, adding to their authentic feel.
The 1970s also saw another type of concert film emerge—a retrospective musical résumé that Taylor Swift might recognize. Tony Palmer and a BBC crew filmed Cream’s farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968, later shown on television. Martin Scorsese then directed The Last Waltz in 1978, a feature-length documentary marking The Band’s disbanding, which broke new ground by removing the visible connection between the audience and performers on screen. The Last Waltz intersperses footage of the concert with structured interviews with band members, lacking the fly-on-the-wall approach. Scorsese later revisited this style in his documentaries on Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.
By effectively removing the concert audience from The Last Waltz, Scorsese altered a key dynamic. The emotional connection between the stage and the crowd, which provides a point of identification for the cinema audience, was lost. Earlier concert film makers like D.A. Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers were keenly interested in this connection. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back followed Bob Dylan’s 1965 UK tour, capturing fan reactions as Dylan transitioned from folk to electric music. He also inaugurated the rock festival film with Monterey Pop, featuring iconic performances from artists like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Pennebaker’s film documenting David Bowie’s final Ziggy Stardust performance was released in 1979.
The Maysles brothers, after covering The Beatles’ first American tour in 1964, returned to music with the Rolling Stones’ 1969 US tour, culminating in the fateful Altamont Speedway concert shown in Gimme Shelter. This film combines concert footage with the band’s reactions to the rising tensions and eventual chaos that led to a fatality. Gimme Shelter and Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock from 1970 serve as works of forensic anthropology, documenting a sub-culture rather than promoting record sales.
Recent concert films, like Madonna: Truth or Dare, Kylie’s Showgirl, and the upcoming Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, show powerful female artists in full control of the film medium. These films not only boost record sales but also promote future tours and provide a way for fans who can’t attend concerts to feel connected. While the ticket price might be steep for a movie, it’s a bargain for a concert experience. So, concert films are experiencing a resurgence in the era of event cinema, competing with a strike-weary Hollywood in the post-COVID box-office revival. However, this was not the case at my local cinema on that Sunday night.