No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Martin Scorcese makes another visually stunning film, and paints Dylan in a way nobody else could have. Instead of being asked stupid questions by stupid journalists, Dylan has a camera put in front of him and he just speaks. He's got a bit of a schedule, but he does what he wants with it. I really don't have words for how this movie made me feel. The sheer passion behind it just fueled my fierce love for Dylan even more.

The live bootlegs and behind-stage clips give a wonderful insight into Dylan's world. He is a man who just emanates coolness like it was the way he was born. It seems like nobody can ever have the upper hand on this man, and it's truly a delight to watch.

Beautiful.

I won't say - Thank you Scorsese, I'll say - Thank you Dylan. I wasn't aware you had all that humor as a young man (and still): - How many protest singers? - 136. And this reporter don't get it, even though people are laughing: - Do you mean exactly 136, or ca 136?? And so on.

Of course I love Dylan's music, his singing voice, his words (I've read his poems, and the novel Tarantula, no wonder he has been suggested for the Nobel Prize in literature more than once).

But this film, then, it's not just about Dylan, it's about how humanity evolved on this planet in the decade we call the sixties. There's so many voices in this movie, I learned so much: - Who is she? - Who is he? - What was that? .. and so on. And searching the internet I found out a great deal, and so got inspired to find out even more.. and so on..

..I'm glad to be alive, thank you all, thank you Scorsese, thank you Zimmerman, Gunnn, Dylan, whatever...

Ola, Norway

NO DIRECTION HOME is, without a doubt, the very best music-themed Documentary I have ever seen in my life!

Before diving in...Let us FOCUS on the Title´s Content & Context:

For any person who considers themselves someone with a special interest in pop culture, music, sociology or even contemporary history, this mesmerizing Martin Scorsese documentary not only is a "MUST SEE", but I would say a "Must have"! (As in "your collection"!)

Here we gain the most fascinating insight into many aspects of Dylan's early career, his creative process, his relationships with other artists and music industry insiders, (particularly with one time love interest, Joan Baez) and the general interaction of Bob Dylan, his music, his growing popularity and the overall effect of these on our culture in the 1960's!

Some of what is covered, I think I was previously aware of, some of it, I wasn't, and quite a bit of it had simply been forgotten, owing to the half a century that has passed!

What surprised me most in DIRECTION HOME? Well, Joan Baez is interviewed extensively and has perhaps the most on-screen time other than Bob Dylan himself. In the 60's and 70's, I always admired Baez as a very talented, outspoken and highly principed young woman ...But, quite honestly, never considered her as being very attractive. She has to be, what?... Like mid-70's when she was interviewed for this documentary. To see her now, so mature, articulate, radiant, overflowing with self-confidence... Well, let's just say that all of this made it EXTREMELY HARD for me to overlook her onscreen appearance!

Well, I hope this review did not contain too much imformation!

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Any comments. Questions or observations.... in ENGLISH o en ESPAÑOL... are most Welcome!

Fascinating, but when the film was over I didn't really understand Dylan's genius to any greater degree than I had before. How did he go from being just another musician on the folk revival scene (as Paul Wilson observes, "(Dylan) wasn't the best, he wasn't the worst", and he had the same basic repertoire as his contemporaries) to writing songs like 'Masters of War', 'Mr. Tambourine Man', and 'Like a Rolling Stone'? And how did it happen so quickly? Probably this is as much of a mystery to Bob Dylan as it is to everyone else. Documenting honest-to-God inspiration of the type that Dylan received in those years--and understanding why he, rather than Joan Baez or Phil Ochs or Tom Paxton, received it--might well be impossible. But "No Direction Home" is utterly engrossing anyhow. Martin Scorsese does a fantastic job of documenting Dylan's emergence from the cold, dreary Midwest, the time he spent honing his craft in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village, and his rise to superstardom. (Yes, the audience at the Newport Folk Festival really *did* boo Dylan when he played a brief electric set there in 1965!) Of particular interest are the interviews with Allen Ginsberg and Dave Van Ronk, both of whom departed this life well before the completion of Scorsese's film. Obviously this is a must-see if you're a Dylan fan, but "No Direction Home" should--despite its length--hold the interest of more casual viewers, too.

I really don't know what to say after viewing Martin Scorsese's mesmerizing three-hour+ made for PBS film except that I am truly impressed. And although it is more of a chronicle of an era (the early 1960's and what lead to Dylan's fame) then a biography of Bob Dylan I was surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. At first I was skeptical, I thought it had pretensions of grandeur: Dylan/and Scorsese? I mean come on guys!? But the piece delivered. It was cut in such a way that seemed to create drama out of raw material. Although ponderous at times the film not only held my interest but made me want to find out more about Bob Dylan, the NYC folk scene, Pete, Seger, Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez and many others. The interviews were fascinating, humorous and sometimes truly educational. There is a purpose and a true sense of that time to the film that is unlike most other "rock" documentaries. In one of my favorite interviews in the film Bob Neuwirth explains how in the early 60's money (financial success) was not an issue when it came to the arts. Back then it was about if an artist had something to say. Weather it was Bob Dylan or Ornette Coleman what people would ask was "does he (the artist) have something to say." Money and the "bottom line" didn't enter into the equation. It was a whole different world back then. Neuwirth states this so glibly that you'll wish you had a time-machine to go back and check it out for yourself. I have at least one friend who was disappointed in the film. He felt that it didn't illuminate the life of Dylan enough in that it ends in 1966 with him being "booed" offstage for "going electric." But apparently this is all Dylan wanted to reveal for this film. He (and his people) gave Martin Scorsese specific instructions to only chronicle this period. Scorsese was asked to sort through hours of material (including 10-hours of recent Dylan interviews). The result is amazing considering these limitations. Instead of illuminating the Dylan myth the film uses "myth" to stir a powerful narrative, one that rivals many of Scosese's latest cinematic endeavors. Perhaps another director would have tried to create something more definitive regarding the details of Dylans life and songwriting process but Scorsese has always favored myth over reality in him films. And in the case of No Direction Home I believe he mixes together the perfect combination of myth, mystery and reality. Sure there are great Dylan performances throughout the feature but they are tied together by a larger narrative which is the journey of an artist (at a particular stage in his life). Some of the highlights for me musically and otherwise were Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival where he has trouble tuning his guitar but still comes off as some sort of "folk messiah" to the folkies present ( was that scene even real?! ), Al Kooper talking about how he came up for the organ part for Like a Rolling Stone (hilarious). Dylan performing (if only snippets of, sigh…) "Masters of War," and his "Hard Rain" and the final performance of the film (Like a Rolling Stone) when Dylan summons his band (the Band) to "play it f*ck#ng loud!" in order offset the hecklers booing his electric set in England in 1966. Ironically I recently read a quote from Jim Jarmusch talking about NYC in the late 1970's, he said, "I feel so lucky. During the late 70's in New York, anything seemed possible. You could make a movie or a record and work part time, and you could find an apartment for 160 bucks a month. And the conversations were about ideas. No one was talking about money. It was pretty amazing. But looking back is dangerous. I don't like nostalgia. But, still, damn, it was fun. I'm glad I was there." Be it the early 1960's or the late 1970's perhaps the charm and "myth" of such an era inspired Dylan and company to chronicle only his "golden era" as opposed to trying to trace his entire career ( which could have proved to be less then fruitful ). Instead we get a wonderful slice of life about a great time in American History, about a great artist and put together on film by a great filmmaker. I'm not going to complain.