I'd've liked Scorcese test the limits of his friendship with Dylan -
all those shots of Dylan at the typewriter "writing" his poetry - he
should've probed a little deeper. Don't get me wrong, I think Dylan as
genius is a fair description however all that stuff had to come from
somewhere. Come to think of it, there's no film of him reading,
prepping, re-editing. Just him typing away - he could be typing "one
jumped over the gate" 5 million times for all we know. All that stuff
just flowed out of him? Listening to "Mr Tambourine Man" now, it seems
polished, well-constructed, to have hard-labour poured into it, a
thousand edits...
I thought the best shots were of him in the taxi in England, shades
on, cornered. It feels like Pennebaker tuned in on the one who was the
lightning-rod at that time.
Roger
On 9/28/05, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I watched the Bob Dylan biog on BBC2 last night. Very enjoyable. Young
> Bob was diffident, mercurial, relentlessly facetious, constantly at
> bay. He seemed in the footage shown to be surrounded by people who
> didn't get it - or who, at any rate, didn't get *him*. He seemed to
> like that, or at least to spark off it - he says, of being repeatedly
> booed, that he has "my own perspective on that...see, it's possible to
> kill with kindness, too".
>
> I kept noticing his nose - a protruberance as necessary to the
> production of Dylan's voice as Pavarotti's great barrel-chest is to
> the production of his. Great cheekbones, also. He was fascinating to
> look at.
>
> Dylan's line is an amazingly flexible thing. His lyrical flow at times
> reminded me of some of the better hip hop artists, tautening and
> loosening, cramming things in and letting them hang out. You
> understand the disappointment of some of the people in the audiences
> at the early electric performances at not being able to make out the
> words.
>
> Dominic
>
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