If there's one good thing to say about this movie, it would be that it has an unbelievable soundtrack. The most pleasant thing for me is to hear new interpretations of Bob Dylan's music and to find that they are all very fresh, breathing new life into songs that otherwise get lost in the vast catalogs of the recording industry jungle.
The songs are all very good, and I would highly recommend that anyone with any level of appreciation for Bob Dylan to purchase the soundtrack.
As a movie, it just didn't work. The non-Aristotalian dramatic structure and pseudonym characters was confusing, especially for someone like me who has a casual appreciation for Dylan.
I think the audience for this movie is the very narrow population of Bob Dylan scholars who actually know which character persona represents which phase of Bob Dylan's life and career. My justification is that I've seen "Don't Look Back" by DA Pennebaker, so the character that resonated the most with me was Jude, portrayed by Cate Blanchett. I adored her in this role. She was simply so engrossing that I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.
The friend I saw it with admitted later that he was lost. I recommended the Dylan documentary to him. This sort of schizophrenic biopic just didn't do Bob Dylan the justice he richly deserves.
1 comment:
You know, it may have value as some sort of esoteric meta-narrative about all things Dylan: if you're sufficiently steeped in Dylan's biography, the issues and events of his era, the themes of his songs, his influences, his attitudes, critical reception to his works, and so on, then you could make sense of the puzzle and get the in-jokes. Maybe then it would be enjoyable.
I'm not, so it wasn't.
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