♥♥♥♥♥♥
+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Epic of the Year + Best Music Movie of the Year
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| Bob Dylan looks beatnik cool by a gas station in the middle of nowhere on this poster for Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home: Bob Dylan |
Bob was a musically interested young man in Minnesota. We follow him through his fascination and fandom of folk legend Woody Guthrie, his own establishing as a musician as a young man, as a groundbreaking 'song-and-dance' man and a protest singer through the stormy changes of the 1960s.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is directed by Martin Scorsese (New York City... Melting Point (1966, documentary)). The title is taken from Dylan's song Like a Rolling Stone (1965).
It is an eminent documentary, highly focused and thorough, which keeps its eyes firmly fixed on the musical aspect of the man and legend that is Dylan: The inspiration for his work, the times which informed it, the individual songs, and the process and development of them. It is filled with both fantastical witness accounts and anecdotes (Joan Baez is wonderful, but there are many terrific participants; memorable also is the musician who is convinced that it is the Holy Spirit that is working through Bob Dylan.) Also central of course are the insightful reflections from Dylan himself, and a wealth of recordings from the many years of his formidable career; from concerts, documentaries etc.
No Direction Home is riveting and probably the closest we'll get to a time travel without an actual time machine, back to this fantastically exciting era and time, - particularly the Greenwich Village culture is captivating, (and the center of the Coen brothers' masterpiece Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)).
Finally a great aspect of the film is that Dylan's lyrics get a chance to unfold themselves, so that goosebumps and tears almost invariably occur during their exhibition. The first part of the documentary is the most magical; the second part hits the later tragedies, the draining madness of the music business and the press, and the rage of the audience, when Dylan went electric. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is another masterpiece and must-see in Scorsese's incredible body of work.
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Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Reportedly 2 mil. $
Box office: None - TV documentary
= Uncertain
[No Direction Home: Bob Dylan premiered 3 September (Telluride Film Festival) and runs 208 minutes. The project began in 1995 with Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen conducting interviews with friends and collaborators of the man. Scorsese was hired to shape the material and was granted access to huge amounts of previously unused content. Shooting took place in New York and Minnesota, including in Minneapolis. The documentary was screened on US TV on PBS as part of their American Masters documentary series. The film won 1/4 Primetime Emmy awards, was nominated for a BAFTA, and won 1 /2 Grammy nominations, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Scorsese has since made another Dylan documentary, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019). Scorsese returned first with The Departed (2006). No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is fresh at 88 % with an 8.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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