Who Is Watching (Anticipating) The Scorsese/Dylan Epic On Monday?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/index.html

I'm hardly a Dylan scholar, but not lacking in that area, and there was plenty I didn't know, and plenty I knew but enjoyed seeing/hearing in a new light.

This is as riveted as I've been by anything in a long time and, as I've said to some of you offline, this is the first time in probably as long that I got this excited about a release and then had it surpass even those expectations.

Yep, it's on there. Somehow seeing it makes it feel different. I suspect someone will revive the what did Dylan mean when he said I don't believe you thread.

however, its still one of the great artistic adventure storie and i don't mind being told it all again one more time. there's a lot of good detailed commentary from the old folkies about how dylan invented himself. bob himself is lucid and amusing. and the live footage from the 66 england tour is completely fucking transcendent.

and you're like, damn

the other thing the doc does is get across how fast it all happened and how scary it was for dylan. there's this clip from the steve allen show, and allen does this ridiculous intro where he's like "so bob, you're acclaimed as the spokesman for a generation, tapped into the zeitgeist of our youth, writing revolutionary poetry that will go down in history as some of our nation's greatest," or words to that effect. and dylan is sort of listening and shuffling uncomfortably. and then allen's like, "so, how long have you been making music." and dylan's like, "two years." it's hilarious.

actually, you could see the doc as bob's oprah moment. "My Pain: Bob Dylan on the suffering of revolutionizing popular music and being declared an instant genius."

Wonderful interviews with Dave Van Ronk, who was such a lovable guy.

Absolutely! That's a total run-to-the-record-store moment.

bob doing a pretty good job of remaining completely inscrutable so far.

-- JC-L

Yeah! Total agreement. A lot of musicians are going to get rediscovered via this.

Finding it pretty revelatory myself!

xp

Liam Clancy xp x 100!

b) The political correlative: because that community had, more than just about any other pop movement I can think of, been affiliated with a mass progressive political movement. Dylan was part of that - the archive shows it."

Yes, the folk revival was affiliated with the political movement of the day (civil rights et al) but surely more as window dressing than anything else. I'd say "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (or "Like a Rolling Stone") had more direct political impact, changed the way people lived and thought, than did "Blowing in the Wind" or "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". The British Invasion made the folk revival seem instantly corny, at least to Dylan and 50,000,000 other Beatle fans.

OTM

-A fascinating take on the subject. I don't know
that I agree with his perspective entirely, but I definitely like hearing
his questions asked. I felt that the documentary faltered somewhat in the
second half - what had previously been drawn in loving detail and with some
patience became very rushed and arbitrary as Dylan's velocity increased.
And while I felt that the first half told a definite story, the second half
seemed to start glossing over things and not really stopping to get to the
heart of it.

Dylan's betrayal of the folk movement is unquestionable, but as I am of the
opinion that no artist should continue an affiliation that has become
stifling, or should continue to work in a form to which he feels he has
nothing left to add. And we can see that he had already started taking
stick from the leading lights of the movement when "Another Side" came out.
No artist likes to be told what to do, and he was being told what to do by
the people who were supposed to be his closest allies. As to how
tactlessly he did it, it probably seems easy to dissect it in hindsight,
but at the time, I imagine one bit of stubbornness or cussedness led to
another in a snowballing effect, not to mention the effect of drug
paranoia, which was probably considerable given the prodigious quantities
of speed he was doing by all accounts. I mean, look at him in 1966 - he's
obviously out of his gourd. I guarantee. I spent a lot of time either on
a wide variety of drugs, or else around people who were when I was
straight, and I know wasted when I see it.

It probably wasn't good for him
to do all them chemicals, but their impact and his artistic progression are
so inextricable (IMO) that speculating on whether he should have been doing
them is like war buffs who speculate on how the siege of Leningrad might
have been waged differently. It's part of the story, and I doubt very much
that his perspective was as well-rounded and gentle as this guy's.

Another perspective to consider is that splits were never Dylan's strong
point - Rotolo, Baez, Lowdnes, none of them were what you'd call
well-reasoned acts of separation. Some people just don't know how to say
goodbye properly. (see J. Tweedy)

The place where I differ entirely is his appraisal of Dylan's 1966 live
material. First of all, "Maggie's Farm" at Newport is ok, but Bloomfield's
repetitive licks wear on the ear, and its tentative approach pales compared
to the majesty of the 1966 band at their committed best. And how he can
say that it's not exploratory is beyond me when one hears the inspired
interplay on songs like "Tom Thumb" and "Thin Man." And, again, the
confrontational aspect of the music seems a natural response to being
continually boo'ed for making the music you want to make. The Newport
material isn't especially confrontational, and even the Hollywood Bowl 65
tape doesn't hit the level of dread of the UK 66 dates. Honestly, even the
australia 66 soundboards have a lighter touch. When you hear the Melbourne
show, there are moments of lighthearted banter with the audience that
harken back to his friendly 1964 persona. I think the real bile comes out
on the europe/66 shows, at the end of the road after being mistreaded the
whole way. Hell, Levon couldn't take it and left months earlier. It
sounds like it was hell.

Criticizing Dylan for the hostile nature of the
1966 UK/Europe playing is like criticizing someone for hitting back when
punched in the nose. It was not a one-sided affair, and the sheer insanity
of people actually daring to boo him, as if to say, "I am buying a ticket
to come to your show so I can tell you how much I hate your present work
and want you to go back to doing what we liked last year." That's an
insane statement. You can't tell an artist what to do - why would you want
to? Maybe they want to come over to Bob's and help him write his next song
too? Morons. If you don't like what an artist is doing, then don't go.
Maybe other people will enjoy his work, and maybe you will find new art you
like. If I no longer enjoy an artist's work, and it upsets me, then that's
too bad, but it's my problem, not the artist's. I didn't like Jeff Koonz'
phase when he was making pornographic art about himself and his wife, but I
didn't show up at his openings and boo him. An artist owes his public
precisely one thing: to do the best, most truthful work he can. It's one
thing to review the work negatively in print and offer comment on how it
failed to move you, but when the protest crowd shows up and starts
protesting Dylan with the same hostility with which they would protest a
nuclear test or a civil rights issue - well, wouldn't that make you get the
hell away from the protest movement?

To have people turning out in droves
to display this kind of hysterical, ignorant arrogance, must have seemed
like the very height of provocation to Dylan. It's like the chorus of
screaming nerds that crowds AintItCoolNews's talkbacks at every twist and
turn of the development of a movie they are anticipating. If this guy
doesn't see that, then he is the mellowest man on earth and could not be
stirred to anger by someone persistently poking him in the eye with a
pencil. If I was showing art and people were constantly turning up at my
openings to corner me and tell me how much they hated my work and why, you
better believe I wouldn't respond with kindness after the first few times.
When you look at it, everybody freaks out because at the root of it, what,
Bob Dylan wasn't a very polite or considerate person in his mid-twenties?
Call the feds, Ma Barker!! It seems like a weird thing to criticise an
artist for. But we've had this conversation before, about Tweedy.

Really, I guess I'm not sure what this guy wanted from Dylan? Sack cloth
and ashes? He's never been much for a straight answer - I thought he was
positively lucid. ;^) The feeling I got was that he wrote the political
songs because it was a situation he was steeped in and interested in at the
time, but that because the songs were so perfectly allied with the aims and
tastes of the folk/protest movement, the people who were really committed
lifers in that movement felt that he was now a signed-up member for life.
He was freakin' 24 or something. A kid. Young men often tend to move from
scene to scene, from group to group as they become themselves. The basic
failure of the folk elders to recognize this simple and very human fact is
puzzling and a little sad. I would agree with the writer's take on his
current persona - I think the rootless, creatively helpless figure of the
recent tours is a fairly sad sight. For [my wife] it's positively
heartwrenching. I think the official line on it is valid and a positive
spin, but how can you watch the guy who slept through that Auditorium
Theatre [which we saw together] show and not shed a tear?

yes, but only to say that the songs on it were songs that he was supposed to pick up from Guthrie's house and work on, but ended up not getting (in other words, he should have been the original collaborator with Guthrie on the album)

My reaction to this was the same (WTF??) as pinefox's. Turns out people had been playing loud, distorted, electric rock n roll at Newport for years. Who knew? I didn't.

I thought it was quite amusing/passable, but I only saw about 20 mins of it.

1) Dylan talking about how he started to notice groups like The Byrds + The Turtles having hits with his songs, or other groups having success by aping his style. Something to the effect that he never paid attention to the Billboard charts until then, giving the impression that "Like A Rolling Stone" was on some level a premeditated attempt to break out of the folk scene "ghetto."

2) Scorsese mentioning that growing up in Brooklyn, he never heard of Dylan until "Like A Rolling Stone" was a hit. The guy was rewriting the rules of songwriting just one borough away and Scorsese didn't know he existed until he hit the Top 40. Something to remember about the pre-music weekly, pre-Internet era; news traveled slow.

Gave me a new perspective - although Dylan was rewriting the rules of songwriting and giving jawdropping performances at Newport Folk Festivals around '62 to '64, he was a big fish in a small pond - it didn't mean much outside of that world (granted, Dylan was working his mojo from inside the industry via the many covers of his material and general influence on songwriters). The '65 electric move does seem like more of a pop move ("time to gets mine") than a pure aesthetic evolution to me now, but I can't really blame the guy for leaving a scene he'd outgrown in a big way.

There would've been considerably less drama from '65 - '66 if he'd completely broken with the scene (e.g. not playing the Newport Folk Festival, booking himself on a rock tour with other established rock groups) rather than try to bring the new material to his existing audience. It's almost like the whole thing was a failure of marketing (or a brilliant success, considering we're still talking about it).

Did anybody notice the blown-up posters of the cover of Dylan's first record during the scene with the disgruntled folkies calling him a "fake neurotic" - were these actually marketing posters (which would explain some of the audience's disconnect with the actual music) or some bizarre form of picket signs the folkies brought with them?

Very good thinking, Edward. Good post.

Masked & Anonymous was silly and rambling as all Dylan post-1967 or so can be -- and yet, yes, it was likeable. Dylan almost 'acted' OK, if that is the word. Did anyone else notice his strange limp? And how tiny he is!

Ive only seen it once, but DL'd a live version of this song from the "Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Boom 1950-1970" compilation. It's tagged onto the end of "I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain" and sounds similar to what I remember on the Dylan show.

Aside from the great concert footage ...the press conferences, oh man. "Why don't YOU suck on my glasses?"

pinefox, don't forget Stephin's (absent) father was a folksinger.

"I can't really say whether the girls took a liking to me....The first girl that ever took a liking to me was Gloria Story....Gloria Story...that was really her name...The second girl that took a liking to me was named Echo...see? That's strange....I never heard of anyone called Echo."

It's amazing to think how rich one person's mostly third-person, mostly second-hand life can be!

But I think it's true to say that all this is connected to his greatness; even to the civil-war-against-cliche that Ricks has long found in his words.

Yeah, can't remember exactly what Scorsese said - maybe he meant he was hanging around in Brooklyn? Maybe he said the Bronx?

I have just remembered Dylan's claim to have written a verse for 'Everything is Broken' that finished: 'Crossing the bridge, going to Hoboken / Maybe over there, things ain't broken'.

I don't think I believe in most of his 'alternative verses'.

The other funny thing was right after that he says "Now...both of these girls brought out the POET in me."....and he kind of stares at the camera with this sly half-grin and holds it for like 2 seconds more than would be normal...sort of like he's made some dirty joke or something....

My interpretation of this is that Dylan is coming clean to the camera, the audience, and the world, and making a simultaneously sheepish and swaggering admission that that his much-celebrated poetry began as a way to pull chicks.

in some circles this statement would get you killed. fortunately, i HATE those circles.

>>it seemed like they wanted scorsese's stamp on the movie but honestly it comes across not much differently than a long a&e biography

I find it hard to imagine what else he could have been trying to convey.

oh, you know, all italians are from brooklyn. even the ones from italy. but the sopranos, they're from jersey. and everyone from jersey is like the sopranos.

Of historical interest is a piece of 14th-century folklore that arose from the Lycosa tarentula (actually a wolf spider) of southern Italy. Certain individuals who thought they had been bitten by this spider would attempt to exhaust themselves by dancing wildly. This condition came to be referred to as tarantism. It has been suggested that the arachnids responsible for these episodes were actually widow spiders of the genus Latrodectus.

Also from the Middle Ages are reports of a dancing mania known as Tanzwuth that was attributed to spider bites. So-called victims would seek out minstrels who would play instruments with shrill tones; this music caused the victims to dance until they fainted. Seizures, demonic possession, and tarantula bites all have been proposed as causes of this behavior. However, no true etiology has been identified, and dancing mania still remains a mystery.

of course the mythical dance that came out of taranto, italy, is well-known as the tarantella:

No Italian wedding or celebration would be complete without the rhythmic song and dance of the tarantella. It is the most popular of all the Italian songs and it is even considered by many as the song of Italy. The song is both lively and graceful and the dance is one of light and quick steps mixed with passionate gestures. Its origin dates back to the Middles Ages and traces of a similar song can even be found in Magna Graecia.

Legend states that between the 15th and 17th centuries an epidemic of tarantism swept through the town of Taranto in southern Italy. This was as a result of being bit by the poisonous tarantula spider. The victim, which is referred to as the tarantata, was almost always a woman but never a high ranking lady or one of an aristocratic upbringing. Once bitten the tarantata would fall into a trance that could only be cured by frenzied dancing. People would surround the victim while musicians would play mandolins, guitars and tambourines in search of the correct rhythm. Each beat would have a different effect on the tarantata causing various movements and gestures. Once the correct rhythm was found it was almost certain that the tarantata was cured.

As legends have it there always seems to be more than one version. Another version states that a woman who was depressed and frustrated from the subordinate lifestyle would fall into a trance that could only be cured by music and dance. This normally lasted three days and during that time the tarantata would be the center of attention, which in turn would cure them of their frustrations and depressions.

Of these two variations that most popular is the one in which the victim is bitten by the poisonous tarantula. This is why the tarantella is sometimes referred to as the dance of the spider.

'mean streets', which is set in little italy, is often held up as kind of 'rock'n'roll' filmmaking, it has the famous ronettes opening bit and the great 'jumpin jack flash' scene. anyway allen klein's back cat is far outweighed by this weird, quasi (?) italian music, lots of novelty hits, etc.

most of the film was actually shot in LA, but the world of these guys isn't quite as hermetic as people are saying: johnny boy picks up two jewish girls in the village and brings them to the bar for a seven and seven. for marty's 'rents it may have been different, of course.

-- 100% WJE (theundergroundhom...), October 4th, 2005.

I'm from Jersey and I find this offensive... you fuckin' hump.