The film traces the journeys of the four members of the Stairway To Heaven rockers through the music scene of the 1960s and their meeting in the summer of 1968, culminating in 1970.

For a band that were arguably the biggest in the world for a period of time in the 1970s, there’s been very few documentaries or movies made about Led Zeppelin, in large part due to the surviving band members taking a notoriously strict approach to interviews and who they’d allow to tell their story. Enter documentary filmmaker Bernard MacMahon, who managed to come up with a heavily researched proposal that the band could get on board with, and the result is ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’, a loving homage to one of the most iconic bands of all time.

As the title suggests, the movie is about the origins of Led Zeppelin, so it doesn’t cover their full story, ending in 1970 as they became the biggest band in the world and not in 1980 when they split after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham. The approach taken is to combine in depth talking head interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, alongside John Bonham’s voiceover, taken from a rare interview, with never before seen footage of the group performing live, in studio and even some from before they became Led Zeppelin (did you know Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played on ‘Goldfinger’? – trivia question right there!). The documentary benefits from MacMahon’s decision to showcase some of these performances in full, allowing the songs to breathe – something that certainly stands out as impressively loud in the IMAX screen I saw the movie in.

One of the things I enjoy most about a music documentary (or biopic) is seeing the creative process in full flow, and ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ excels in this regard, finding the right blend between the group’s descriptions and the footage on display to show how they created songs that must have sounded like nothing anyone had heard before at the time. It was particularly interesting hearing about how they all came together to form the band from their respective origins in the music business, to the way in which they’d describe being attuned to the others instruments to ensure they complemented one another. I can’t say Led Zeppelin are a band that I have spent a great deal of time listening to (although that may change after this!), but I really enjoyed this documentary film, and thought they all came across well as they shared their insights. It’s well worth seeing whether you like them or not, and if you’re a fan, you’re going to absolutely love this!

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Bernard MacMahon

Starring: Robert Plant, John Bonham, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt10365912/