PARK CITY, Utah -- As the song says, there comes a time.

For longtime friends Neil Young and Jonathan Demme that time was last year, when the rock legend and Oscar-winning filmmaker found themselves each at a crossroads.

Young had just recorded his melodic, country-flavoured Prairie Wind album, which he created while dealing with a potentially lethal brain aneurysm.

Demme, the director of The Silence of the Lambs, had just finished The Manchurian Candidate remake and felt like taking a break from feature-film making.

Young recalls with a smile, "Jonathan called to say he was taking a year off to make a film. It was kind of funny."

Their collaboration, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

It was shot for two nights last summer at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium and features the world premiere of Young's Prairie Wind.

Young, who at 60 still commands a stage, is joined by such longtime compatriots as Emmylou Harris, Young's wife Pegi, on backup vocals, and keyboardist Spooner Oldham.

As Young and Demme -- who met when Young contributed the song Philadelphia to the soundtrack of Demme's 1993 drama -- told a question-and-answer session at the Filmmaker's Lodge here on Main Street, the intention was not to make a traditional concert film, but rather Young's "dream concert."

"The film only looks like a concert film," Young says.

Indeed, Demme avoids the usual concert film trappings -- he never cuts to the crowd or outside the Ryman.

Demme also saw Heart of Gold as a chance to take country music "out of the barn ... There really hasn't been a loving, respectful film like this."

Not that the film turned out entirely like Demme first intended. Originally, he wanted to visualize Young's lyrics by having the Canadian icon performing in front of a blue screen; images reflective of the songs would then he superimposed behind Young. Then, as the two spoke more and more about the project, Demme realized he didn't need effects.

"Neil's songs would evoke those images."

Images that for Young were intensely personal.

For one, the singer's father had recently died after suffering from dementia. "Those of us who have parents know what I'm talking about -- there's this thing that happens. And this was my second parent, so suddenly I was at the top of the tree looking at the sky rather than looking up and seeing my mom or dad."

And there was the health crisis which threatened his life.

"I was in New York for a function and there was a problem with my vision. I identified it myself as not from my eye but from my brain."

He was diagnosed with an aneurysm and scheduled for surgery to remove it. He immediately began writing the songs for Prairie Wind, thinking that "I'm not really worried, but on the other hand, I'm not sure what I'm going to be like after (the surgery). So I wanted to square up a few things in my life."

He wrote and recorded the songs quickly. "It went pretty fast. They were on top of one another. I couldn't remember the one from yesterday because I was already writing the one for tomorrow."

In Heart of Gold, the first half of the movie is comprised of material from Prairie Wind. For the second half, Young performs such classics as Harvest Moon, Comes A Time, The Needle and the Damage Done and Old Man.

With their concert collaboration set for limited release next month, Young and Demme are now contemplating another documentary together, this one exploring The Bridge School Concerts. The acoustic music festival, which Young and his wife have hosted for nearly 20 years, benefits the Bridge School in San Francisco, which develops new technologies to assist in the education of disabled children.

Young, one of the founders of Farm Aid, also wants to assist New Orleans. "I just want to go there and start playing clubs and stay there until the place is crawling with people."