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Scorsese's Dylan film

lat

lat

Dec 30, 2014
1,071
1,713
Lower Basstonia
#1
Scorsese does it again.

This gave me a much greater appreciation for Dylan. Still don't like his voice, but he had a real charisma on stage, with a powerful delivery of his lyrics, even though it was usually not in tune.

Was impressed by Rob Stoner on bass. Seems like he kept Dylan on track through a lot of songs.

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#2
I'm giving it a bash. The notion of it all is quite interesting. Bob and co take a sort of introspective approach to being Americans in the time of the bicentennial. Bob also wanted to do a sort of potted history tour of America that took in smaller or overlooked locations.

I sense that a lot of coherence and clarity was ultimately sort of bled away by coked up hippies. Allen Ginsberg seems like an incredibly wearing character, and that weird woman on violin gets a bit annoying after a while. It feels like she is being willfully weird and opaque; like it is a requirement to hang around Dylan.

What I question, honestly, is the integrity of it all. It feels like Dylan and co worked their way through a heap of coke and then studied gypsy jazz, shamanism, Kabuki theatre or whatever grabbed their attention for two seconds. They plundered anything esoteric then reeled off a slightly disingenuous pastiche of it onstage, to mass appreciation and plaudits. Bob couldn't simply paint his face white without there being some deeper meaning to it all. As such it has felt pretty self indulgent so far.
 
#3
I was really impressed by the performances. I do understand about the trippy free association poetry and stuff, but I don't get the sense that Dylan ever really descended into that like Ginsburg and Patti Smith did in the movie. But hey, I understand a little of the zeitgeist of the time and when that sort of thing was considered profound. I thought Dylan was super focused and intense. Joan Baez called him the most charismatic person she ever knew and I think the film bears that out.

I read later that some parts were fiction, such as the bit with Sharon Stone and the interviews with the promoter.
 
#4
I haven't seen it yet, and I've never cared much about this period of his music. But it's interesting to me now because I know this was shortly before his conversion to evangelical Christianity.
 
#5
consectaneus said:
I read later that some parts were fiction, such as the bit with Sharon Stone and the interviews with the promoter.
Click to expand...
I really dug the live performances [Doug Stoner], but the interviews with the fake film maker, Sharon Stone etc ruined it for me. The scene with Joni Mitchell singing Coyote at Gordon Lightfoot's house was awesome though.
 
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#8
I hear the complaint about Bob’s voice all the time. So he’s not the greatest singer. His songwriting is magnificent, so I cut him some slack.

I hear the same about Neil Young. Neil has a very distinctive voice. You know after two notes that it’s Neil. I think that’s a very good trait to have. And again, his songwriting is superb.
 
#9
"Scorsese does it again. This gave me a much greater appreciation for Dylan. Still don't like his voice, but he had a real charisma on stage, with a powerful delivery of his lyrics, even though it was usually not in tune."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This exactly! I could never get past his voice, but now I 'get' him.
 

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