| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| darwin |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:16:10
Anyone else planning on watching Scorsese's documentary on Dylan? It's on tonight and tomorrow night on PBS.
PS Put a sock in it Dylan haters. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Kirk |
Posted - 10/07/2005 : 08:35:52
There may have been silly questions asked to Dylan, but the best part is the answers he gives.
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| HeywoodJablome |
Posted - 10/06/2005 : 23:46:57
Well, it's him telling the story without a bunch of asinine questions like,"Why do you wear the Triumph Motorcycle t-shirt, is it a statement of some sort?" |
| Carl |
Posted - 10/06/2005 : 16:59:08
A friend has it and recommends it. May take a loan. |
| HeywoodJablome |
Posted - 10/06/2005 : 16:38:47
I liked the Chronicles Vol. 1 book. One of the most readable reads I ever readed. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 10/06/2005 : 15:29:14
quote:
Originally posted by Carl
Sunday Times TV critic AA Gill:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14934-1805385,00.html
What anyone under the age of 40, or who thinks the 1960s were just a mass style catastrophe, will have made of it, I can’t imagine. Dylan wasn’t the beginning of anything: nobody came after him.
I'm over 40 and I think ... oh wait, darwin said to put a sock in it.
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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| Carl |
Posted - 10/06/2005 : 15:19:52
Sunday Times TV critic AA Gill:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14934-1805385,00.html
"As well as celebrating its 30th birthday, Arena gave itself a vast hagiography on the life of Bob Dylan. No Direction Home (Monday and Tuesday, BBC2) was a 205-minute epic directed by Martin Scorsese. The end credits alone boasted a crew that was bigger than most concert audiences, and went on longer than almost all of Dylan’s live performances.
The programme itself was so weighty and voluminous, it needed an international relief effort of co-producers to get it up. And it was shown simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, which is the sort of broadcasting bombast that means next to nothing to the viewer watching, as he always is, prone naked on the sofa, but fills the Tristrams with an overweening, solipsistic sense of significance.
Celebrating an anniversary with a big bucket of Dylan is symbolically very middle-aged and very un-Arena: its leitmotif was always to treat apparently small subjects like epics, and to find ways of cutting epics down to size.
No Direction Home was a surround-sound saga, and whether you think this programme was a success or not rather depends on whether you think Dylan is the 20th century’s Blake and Mozart or a miserable droning noise. Personally, coming from the generation that now spends its Saturdays in record shops buying the same album for the third time (once vinyl, twice tape, third CD), and can’t get to the end of Blowin’ in the Wind without crying, I loved it. Dylan’s songs were the depressing drone of my generation and, as with French new-wave cinema, Marshall McLuhan and Allen Ginsberg, you had to be there to get the full emotional tug.
Devoted though I am, the unexpurgated version of Scorsese’s opus did seem a little exhausting, a bit greedily nerdy, a touch embarrassingly obsessive, particularly Dylan himself. He is a Zelig-like hole at the centre of his own mythology. Even with an exhaustive interview cut into the old footage and newsreel, I still came out knowing as little about the man as when I’d started. The programme lacked a plot or destination because Dylan resolutely refused to give it one. Of course, it was a beautifully crafted film with an elegiac rhythm, made in the manner of Ken Burns. Mind you, with all that crew and all those producers, so it should have been.
What anyone under the age of 40, or who thinks the 1960s were just a mass style catastrophe, will have made of it, I can’t imagine. Dylan wasn’t the beginning of anything: nobody came after him. He doesn’t have acolytes. He was just the end of political folk music, and he was a sponge for everyone else’s wish lists and aspirations. Folk singers wanted him to be the second coming of Woody Guthrie, so he went electric. Joan Baez wanted him to lead the protest movement, but he said he was just a song-and-dance man. When a fan asked what a record cover meant, he said he hadn’t looked at it. And still Dylan has the habit of answering a question with a question, or asking for obscuring clarification. This may be platonically profound, it may be autistic, or it might just be the most self-important, infuriating pose in rock history.
Dylan isn’t likeable and he isn’t unlikeable. He’s not particularly interesting, nor boring. But for an important moment, he was the man and the message. Not since Vera Lynn has a performer met his hour with quite such resonance. And in an appropriately enigmatic way, this film came away empty-handed. It may have been brilliant; it may also have been dross. It might have had a message, and it might just have been one long drone. Who knows?" |
| Z_Zoquis |
Posted - 10/05/2005 : 05:07:21
No, actually I didn't find that at all. I thought it was really the opposite actually. Dylan himself was refreshingly honest about the whole artistic/songwriting process I thought. Watching him being grilled by the laughably square reporters essentially wanting him to talk about what it's like to be a messiah and to explain how he goes about writing songs to lead his generation was sort of harrowing. You could see how burned out he was. I mean heres a guy who just wants to write some cool songs and maybe rock out a bit and everyone on the planet keeps telling him he has to be the "voice of his generation." What I found surprising was just how dramatic the whole "Dylan goes electric" thing had been. It was really a shocking thing (no pun intended). He didn't just go electric, he went violently, noisily, caustically electric. |
| Surfer Rosa |
Posted - 10/05/2005 : 00:57:57
Am I the only one who thinks that it was rather heavy on the self indulgence? I mean the man is a legend and still is massively influential, but I'm finding I can only do short stints of what I taped since I find myself either mentally switching off or getting really really annoyed.
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself. |
| Carl |
Posted - 10/04/2005 : 18:20:01
I have the first part taped, saw some of the second part. It's out on DVD, wanna see it all! |
| Daisy Girl |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 20:17:29
great docu. its funny b/c it helped me to understand the time in which the music was written/prefomed and all the crazy stuff that dylan went through when he became famous. gosh some of those reporters and fans were so uncool! but he just did his thang... :) I luv dylan's music.
"I ain't goin to be what I ain't" |
| darwin |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 13:47:51
I saw him almost a year ago for the first time and it was excellent. His band is unbelievable. |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 05:17:57
my first (and only) dylan show was pretty good. i paid a bit too much in my eyes for the ticket (like forty bucks) but it was general admission, so i got there pretty early (right after class) and brought a book, so i got to the literal front row and just sat down and read some mass media and politics text book while i waited. dylan came out and did a LOT of blonde on blonde stuff, and his band was ace. all in all a pretty good show
-Brian
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| tobafett |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 19:05:31
the documentary's pretty good...I've enjoyed it so far. Makes me want to re-think seeing him again in concert (not a good 'sperience the first time). |
| floop |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 17:57:38
heywood, right now i'm living in the UK in spirit. phsically in Los Angeles.. but i grew up in Fullerton. my hometown baby.. that's why i was curious about the Olde Ship. i just had dinner with my parents there recently. some cute waitresses there (not that i look at other women besides my girlfriend)
The Olde Ship makes me feel at home, spiritually... and also literally since it's in Fullerton, my original home |
| HeywoodJablome |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 14:12:06
Floop, clear this up for me. On your handel there it says the you live in the UK yet you know Los Angeles (and now it seems OC) more or less like the back of your hand. Do you just go back and forth or what?
No, not the one in Fullerton though I've been there a few times. They opened up one in Santa Ana within walking distance from my pad about five years ago. Interestingly enough the barkeep was telling me last night that the Fullerton location was keeping the other afloat until a couple years ago. They had a huge party the year that they turned a profit at the SA location. It's a great pub, no t.v.'s=no Budweiser meatheads. |
| floop |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 13:52:08
quote:
Originally posted by HeywoodJablome
Traffic school was amazing, such a beautiful experience. Some of us went to the Olde Ship for Smithwicks and Jamesons afterwards and talked about what the documentary could have been like. After a lot of drinks we came to the consensus that it was probably..."Good".
you mean the Olde Ship in Fullerton? |
| HeywoodJablome |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 10:34:54
Traffic school was amazing, such a beautiful experience. Some of us went to the Olde Ship for Smithwicks and Jamesons afterwards and talked about what the documentary could have been like. After a lot of drinks we came to the consensus that it was probably..."Good". |
| Kirk |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 07:28:23
My wife and I watched it. We had a fuzzy picture (weak antenna), but what we saw was pretty inspiring. It talked about Woody Guthery and many of Dylan's heroes. There were a lot of eccentric musicians back in the 60's & 70's |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 07:12:01
i think i read that all the interviews were done w/ dylan between like 95 and 97 or something like that. he looks younger than when i saw him in 2000
-Brian
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| Z_Zoquis |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 07:01:07
Yeah, I thought he looked a bit younger than he is... |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 06:02:50
actually, all the dylan interviews were done years before scorcese came on board - dylan's manager set up all the interviews.
-Brian
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| Z_Zoquis |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 04:18:36
Part 1 was pretty interesting. I've certainly never heard Dylan speak more clearly or more fluently...Scorcese must have invented some sort of special audio filter or something.
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| floop |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 18:50:05
quote:
Originally posted by HeywoodJablome
Fucking traffic school tonight!! Fuck you traffic!!!
dude, online traffic school. it changed my life |
| HeywoodJablome |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 16:53:15
Fucking traffic school tonight!! Fuck you traffic!!! |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 14:28:53
i plan on watching part 1 tonight, and part 2 tomorrow as it is being broadcast in the states. i may just tape it and watch a dvd on my computer or something, as i don't know if i'm in a dylany mood, but i want to see it.
-Brian
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| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:57:37
October here for DVD. It's on the BBC tonight, but I don't really have the time to invest four hours in watching it on a TV schedule. My boss went to see it at the NFT and said it was excellent, though, so I may get the DVD.
Ooh, he's got an arm off! |
| darwin |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:53:10
It's coming out (or maybe even is already out) on DVD. |
| whoreatthedoor |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:42:37
I would. If I only could...
And all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take
To soothe my mind so I'm always sober
Always aching, always heading towards
Mass suicide, occult figurines
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| floop |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:29:42
speakin' of Dylan, Todd Haynes is doing a (more experimental) film about him.. could be interesting
http://imdb.com/title/tt0368794/ |
| floop |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:20:23
i herd its güd |
