No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

Having been a casual listener of Bob Dylan, I found this documentary rather insightful and well-made. Narrated by Dylan, director Martin Scorsese basically interviews friends, colleagues and family of Dylan (as well as Dylan himself) and gets to the roots of his inspiration and upbringing.

As I said above, I'm not a huge fan of Dylan insofar that I'd be able to tell you all of his songs, albums, etc. Some of my personal favorites are "Like a Rolling Stone," "The Man in Me" and of course "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." The film's soundtrack uses Dylan songs which is a nice addition as well. It's four hours long and when screened on TV comes in two parts, so you may have to see it in two viewings. But I found out a lot about Dylan that I didn't know before and I think that's the point.

Well-made, well-documented.

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.

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.

In our age of universal celebrity, where we know everything that everyone famous thinks (or, more usually, does not think), it's refreshing to rediscover how interesting it can be to hear from someone whose achievements are great but who rarely speaks about them. Bob Dylan has given an extensive interview to Martin Scorcese for Scorcese's film about his emergence from the folk scene and his subsequent "betrayal" of that scene when he went electric: it's absorbing to watch, although, in the end, Bob doesn't actually say that much specific. However, the interview is complemented by a selection of other distinguished talking heads and most crucially, a rich selection of archive footage, going back to Dylan's very first days as a performer. What one notices is just how young he was: the depth and sophistication of even his earliest music can blind one, listening on record, to the age of the performer producing it. He also comes across as playful, self-confident and quite naturally baffled by some of idiocy going on around him: far from seeming incomprehensibly moody, Dylan actually appears as sane as anyone could be at the centre of such attention. It's the music, though, that is really the key to this film, with a rawness and edge, as well as a cleverness, that is still unsurpassed today (and this comment applies equally to the acoustic and the electric material). Since 1966 when the film ends, Dylan has continued to tour and write occasionally great songs; but the body of work that he produced in the early to mid 1960s stands clear for its amazing quantity and quality. If nothing else, 'No Direction Home' stands as clear testament to that achievement.

Well, it took a director as great as Martin Scorsese and 45 years of recording, travelling, ramblin' and bein' busy bein' born instead of dyin', but at long last Dylan fans from Dharma to Duluth have a glimpse behind the genius in the dark sunglasses. A remarkable film--for so many reasons that it would take at least 3 1/2 hours (the length of the movie) to list them--but the main reasons anyone with an interest in His Bobness needs to view this film are as follows: 1) Scorsese's direction: Almost 30 years after he chronicled the passing of a musical era with his magnificent film The Last Waltz, Scorsese once again captures musical brilliance and history on film as only someone who truly appreciates Dylan's historical as well as cultural influence could. A Master Director chronicles a Master Musician. 2) Archival footage of everyone you never saw before on film, including Gene Vincent, Hank Williams, and early 60's Greenwich Village pioneers aplenty and of course.. 3) Bob. For reasons known only to himself, Dylan actually speaks on record about his least favorite topic, himself. Along with last year's autobiography, this film reveals far more of the portrait of the artist as a young man than could ever have been anticipated given Bob's notorious closed-mouthed history on his own history.

With Elvis, Ray Charles and John Lennon gone, there are few--if ANY--artists whose historical and musical importance even come near that of Bob Dylan. In No Direction Home, we see as much, if not more, than we are entitled to see about how and why young Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing, MN became the most important songwriter of the 20th century.

He's got everything he needs--he's an artist--but just this once, he DOES look back.