PBS series American Masters broadcast the Bob Dylan documentary last week but I finally got to watch the second part last night. Zimmy is a musician who’s always been in the background for most people my age and younger, making new music occasionally, sending out some strange messages at times, but this film goes back to his origins and the days when he was very much in the spotlight’s glare.
Covering his life only until a horrific motorcycle accident in 1966, No Direction Home is a deeply flawed production though it offers a view of Dylan that’s informative and enlightening. PBS included after the second half a brief interview with Martin Scorsese (by the nearly useless Charlie Rose) during which the acclaimed director explained that all the interview segments we’d seen of Dylan were conducted not by Scorsese or a journalist but by one of Dylan’s associates. This explained the complete lack of any really probing questions.
In fact, if I understood correctly, all of the material in the movie was assembled prior to Scorsese’s involvement and his major contribution was to “find the narrative” and oversee an editor piecing together the footage. For just this part, I’d say he did a good job and overall I feel, other than a few slow spots in the second hour, the documentary is worth watching for any fan of American culture. I know that the man has never been interested in answering those questions, not seeing them as interesting or perhaps even possible, but I feel the lack of real insight from Dylan himself was a missed opportunity.
One of the strong points is that though interviews with contemporaries (Liam Clancy and Pete Seeger particularly), performance footage and some surviving radio interviews and press conferences we get a very good understanding of Dylan’s early development and his effect on the folk music scene. Most of the film, after all, takes place before he became a pop star; that really didn’t happen until about 1965, after his “shocking” electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival. 40 years on, there’s still controversy about the crowd’s reaction but the footage used shows that they did boo. In fact footage from the subsequent tour of Britain shows that audiences there were also quite upset with the change.
To some extent, after watching, I can understand it. Up until these concerts the show was Bob Dylan onstage with his guitar, harmoica and voice. Period. Hearing, for example, his original versions of “Blowing in the Wind” and “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” are revelations. No band behind him, I can see the simple power of his poetry; a lot of things about Bruce Springsteen are more understandable now.
No Direction Home is a very good film. I don’t think you need to be a big fan of his music to enjoy it. Scorsese could’ve used his scalpel a little better and reduced the run time by 20-30 minutes, and certainly the circumstances of the Dylan interviews should have been made clear. Nonetheless, worth watching.
recommended
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