The new documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin explores the formation of legendary rock band Led Zeppelin, up until the release of their 1969 sophomore album, Led Zeppelin II. The filmmakers — Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty — say there’s a good reason why they wanted to stick to that era.
“It was always going to be the origin story,” McGourty tells ABC Audio, “because the beginnings of things are always the most interesting.”
The film includes new interviews with the band’s three surviving members — Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones — and MacMahon, the film’s director, says they “were incredibly candid, once they agreed” to participate.
“They are completely without guile, artifice or self-consciousness,” he says. “I mean, they’re literally talking to you the way that they talk to us privately when it was just us in a room.”
The film also includes archival audio from the band’s late drummer, John Bonham, and MacMahon says he couldn’t imagine making the film without it.
“Led Zeppelin, more than any other musical entity I’m aware of, you remove one of those people, [and] it wouldn’t have been Led Zeppelin and it wouldn’t have worked,” he shares. “So if one of them was missing, I think the story for me could not have been told.”
The film also features full archival Led Zeppelin performances, with McGourty explaining, “We wanted it to be like something like the Rocky Horror Picture Show that we loved, that you could go and see multiple times, like a real concert experience.”
“I mean, the music’s absolutely incredible, so we’re giving the audience the music in the purest form possible,” MacMahon adds. “It’s like, if you did a film about Led Zeppelin and … you’re not showing the whole songs in the most powerful way possible, why are you making the movie?”
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