sessions were omitted from the film entirely. Unexpected negotiations with Dylan While Bob Dylan had agreed to perform at the concert, which was being filmed, he decided during the intermission that he did not want his own performance filmed after all. He feared it might detract from his film Renaldo and Clara, which he directed during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, which ended months earlier. However, Warner Bros. had agreed to finance Last Waltz only if Dylan would appear in it. Levon Helm said that Scorsese "went nuts" upon hearing that Dylan changed his mind, while "Robbie became totally pale." More than a million dollars would have been lost without Dylan's performance in the film, said Helm. Jonathan Taplin, the Band's manager and producer of the film, was also beside himself, knowing that he had no influence over Dylan. He, along with Robertson and Scorsese, then went to Graham: "Bill, you're going to have to go and talk to Bob." They knew that Graham had worked with Dylan before, such as during Graham's SNACK Benefit Concert a year earlier. They wanted Graham to explain to Dylan how dire the situation was, said Helm. As Graham walked toward Dylan's dressing room, he tried to reassure them, "Don't worry, I'm gonna make it happen." As they waited, there were frantic backstage negotiations between Graham and Dylan, recalls Helm: Robertson also assured Dylan that the concert film's release would be delayed until after his film. Taplin later said that "Bill did the greatest thing that night. In a sense, he really saved the day for us." At one point during Dylan's performance, Robertson states that Lou Kemp, a close friend of Dylan, said "We're not filming this." And Bill just said, "Get out of here, or I'll kill you." Graham told him "This is history, don't mess with it!" Kemp backed off. To add to the confusion, Scorsese said that when Dylan got on stage, the sound was so loud he did not know what to shoot: "Fortunately, we got our cues right and we shot the two songs that were used in the film." According to Kemp, "More or less, Bob got his way. I think they shot a little more than he wanted but they didn't shoot as much as they wanted. As it ended up, everybody came out whole. Robertson was also satisfied: Drug use Scorsese has said that during