I think the key comment in the whole film is Dylan's remark about Woody Guthrie's songs that "you could learn how to live a life from them." This is to me how Dylan began to do something interesting with the "play-acting persona" -- he began to write songs like Rimbaud, from the unconscious (he was writing all the time) and then would take that cue, and live like that, and then write the next, and so on. It is the iteration of a new poetic self from year to year that is what was so stunning to watch. Exactly the same thing was going on with the Beatles. That is what makes them so important for the 60's generation: they were reinventing themselves in public over and over: they showed that this is what you can do if you push beyond the limits of your self.

There is lots about Dylan I hate, but I give him that courage.   It is worth 100 lesser people.

yours,

Peter T.