BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home

Subject: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 01:26 PM

Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan - called No Direction Home is to be the first programme to be simultaneously broadcast on BBC and PBS. On Monday 26 September.

9pm on BB2 on Monday and Tuesday.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 05:09 PM

I've got it marked on my calendar, Shambles. I didn't know they wree going to show on both at the same time, though. That's kewl.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 07:04 PM

If you tune in to WFDU 89.1 FM this Sunday between 3-6 PM you will hear the Part 1 of No Direction Home--Bob Dylan. It is the piece that accomponies the DVD that is being released---and airs on PBS.

Ron Olesko will be hosting this week and I shall present Part 2 next week along with some wonderful guests in the studio---Mustard's Retreat.

You can listen on the web:   

http://www.wfdu.fm

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 07:05 PM

I meant to add---that is 3-6 PM Eastern Time in the U S

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 05:53 AM

BBC 4 is showing no less than seven (yes count them) Bob Dylan-related programmes.

On Saturday Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz.
Monday has Dylan's Legends.
Sing Dylan is on Tuesday.
Dylan in the Madhouse and Don'r Look Back are on Wednesday.
Arena - Highway 61 Revisited is on Thursday.
And the tribute concert from The Barbican - Talking Bob Dylan Blues (and featuring Martin Carthy) - is on Friday.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 06:51 AM

Tune in and be amazed at how much Bob robbed from the great Donovan!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 07:02 AM

Never mind Donovan. Nobody seems to recognise how much material(and, more importantly, performance style) Dylan appropriated from Mary O'Hara in the cold winter of 1962

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 07:13 AM

The line-up for The Barbican tribute concert (BBC 4 8.30 - 10.30pm) is.

Billy Bragg
KT Tunstall
Martin Carthy
Barb Jungr

Plus (it says here) music from:

Robyn Hitchcock
Willy Mason
Odetta
Liam Clancy
Roy Harper

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:48 AM

Greg, what rubbish.

Mary O'Hara spent the "cold winter" of 1962 in a convent in England, which she entered in April of that year. She stayed there for 12 unbroken years. She had totally given up singing at that point.

Besides, even if Dylan had learned something from her, which I doubt, and certainly not in winter '62, what would have been wrong with that? Mary had to learn the traditional songs from someone,in her case notably Séan Óg O'Tuama. I have Mary's email address but I wouldn't waste her time by raising such a silly question with her.

I'm quite surprised to see Martin Carthy on the tribute show as he too has criticised Dylan for "stealing" the tune of "Nottamun Town" from him. (In fact it seems more likely that he got it from Jean Ritchie, who according to Dylan's biograpger Howard Sounes,got a payment of $10,000 for her "arrangement" of the tune).

I'm most looking forward most to seeing a clip from "Madhouse on Castle Street", which I thought had been wiped decades ago.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:49 AM

Just to clarify Bill's post, the radio special we are airing is a "companion" to the PBS special and it is stand-alone program, not the soundtrack to the film. It is a syndicated show, hosted by David Dye, and is the "official radio bootleg". Interviews with Dave Van Ronk, Carolyn Hester and more.   The special will be airing on other stations across the country.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:53 AM

The DVD was released here in the U.S. yesterday. I watched Part 1 last evening and was very impressed.   Even the non-Dylan fans should enjoy all the great "folk" footage.   Part 1 does a good job of documenting the Greenwich Village folk scene of the era. This film has been in the making for some time and features commentary from the late Dave Van Ronk and Allen Ginsberg in interviews recorded before their deaths.   Also good to hear from Mark Spoelstra and others.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:52 AM

Big Tim: re Mary O'Hara. Sorry, I was joking, which doesnt always work in this format. I merely picked the performer with whom Dylan would have been least likely to interact. Because, let's face it, people do go rather OTT from time to time about Dylan's influences.
And I was also having a dig at M O'H, whose opinions on traditional folk music I found downright offensive.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Jim McLean
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:52 AM

My wife, Alison Chapman McLean, has been approached by both the BBC people from Arena (the Scorsese film) and the Barbican Tribute for the use of her photographs of Dylan, Carthy and others which she took in the Troubadour from '62 onwards. To see more of her Troubadour pictures, check out
http://www.richardandmimi.com/troubadour.html

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:54 AM

I wasn't joking about his blatant rip off of the divine Donovan!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:56 AM

Is there really some Madhouse in Castle Street footage in existence? I thought it was dead and gone. How about the Dylan song about the swan which appeared in that show, but was never used since? Has that reappeared?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:00 PM

Ripping off "divine" Donovan?? Sounds like somebody has been smoking bananna peels again.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:15 PM

Come on, Ron. Are you trying to tell us that Chimes of Freedom isn't a direct steal of Try and Catch the Wind?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:54 PM

Sorry EJ - you would have to say that Bob Dylan could travel into the future if you believe that.

Dylan released Chimes of Freedom in June of 1964, Donovan's Try and Catch the Wind came out in 1965.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 01:13 PM

As Dylan returns to the piano, his early influences from the mighty Richard become clear, though not obviously from the music!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:25 PM

You will see the influences in the film! Really well done. I am amazed at the footage they found, not just of Dylan, but of the folk scene.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: bobad
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:34 PM

"This film has been in the making for some time and features commentary from the late Dave Van Ronk and Allen Ginsberg in interviews recorded before their deaths."

Too bad, I'd really like to hear the one's recorded after their deaths.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:47 PM

I understand that in the film they go into Dylan's self-manufactured early history, with colorful mentors like Chicago bluesman "Blind" Arvella Gray, etc, brought in to establish Dylan's credentials. Any truth to that?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:12 PM

"Too bad, I'd really like to hear the one's recorded after their deaths."

My faith in humanity is saved. I just knew someone would make the joke!!!!


Yes Ron, they do go into that and Dylan comments about it. I won't spoil it!!!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 02:36 AM

Thanks for clearing that one up Greg!

Next week's "Radio Times" has gone Dylan mad, featuring him on the cover and umpteen articles inside the mag. It does say that "Castle Street" is in fact now lost, but I thought I saw elsewhere that a fragment survived and will be featured. Time will tell...

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 03:26 PM

Time indeed will tell.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 08:26 PM

Isn't "official bootleg" a bit of an oxymoron?

Have you ever noticed there aren't many blues musicians who cite Dylan as an influence?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 09:59 PM

gee, I wonder why that is.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 08:49 AM

The Under Milk Wood Blues Band from South Wales consider his work to very influential. Especially by their lead singer Bible-Black Jones.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 11:26 AM

I fully expect this show to be about as iconoclastic about Dylan as The Motorcycle Diaries was about Che (the film was a beautiful Don Quixote sort of Latin American fairy tale version of Ernesto's "conversion" to Che).

That is to say, I expect yet another reverential hagiography of St. Bob.

Too bad no one has the guts to do a critical (in a positive sense), unbiased review of his life while he is alive--and no, I don't mean one of those schlock, gossipy "unauthorized biography" sorts of things. Those have already been done, rather uncritically for the most part.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,guest2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 02:00 PM

sounds like the previous guest has a few skeletons in his closet that he still can't shake.   Great to rush to judgement, and no matter what the film will entail this little troll will have his opinion made up

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 02:32 PM

Oooh, guest2, I must have hit a nerve in a big Dylan fan.

Look, I really love a lot of Dylan songs. I've never considered him more than a mediocre musician (compared to many of his contemporaries), and of course, we all know he is no singer (hence, not the greatest "singer-songwriter" of his generation).

The last album I bought of Dylan's I thought was really excellent was 'Desire'. In the decade between 'Blonde on Blonde' and 'Desire' I wasn't all that impressed with much of Dylan's work. And since 'Desire' I haven't been impressed with him at all--just the opposite. He seems to be a musician long past his own shelf life, living off his laurels. His fan base, to me, has always been the sorts of folks who lined the parade route to cheer on their beloved Emperor With No Clothes. That goes double for the music journals and journalists who have made lots of money over the years perpetuating the "voice of a generation" myth.

I think Scorcese is egomaniacal, to the detriment of many his works. Yet, that doesn't stop film critics and his movie fans from declaring him "the filmmaker of his generation". And BTW, I loved 'The Last Waltz'.

People of a certain age and education level should really be able to distinguish truth from hype. I think one of Dylan's main problems with controlling his own image, is he never did manage to do that for himself, much less his fan base (which I believe he proved in 'Chronicles').

Instead of taking pot shots at me, why not actually say something of substance?

Your response makes me think you may be one of those Dylan worshippers, who prefers to hear no criticism about St. Bob.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 03:48 PM

Because you are the hypocrit here. Without even watching the show, you have already condemned it and Dylan. Your last statent proves it.

I'm not a fan of Dylans. I could care less. I just can't stand cowardly hypocrits who talk out of their butt.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:18 PM

Why stop at sainthood? I'd make him God.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:40 PM

I'm not talking out my ass guest2. I'm talking about what I've read about the film so far, and what I know about the Dylan myth and the Scorcese myth. That isn't so very difficult to do, if you think about what you are going to see in advance of seeing it, rather than simply react to it as if it were just any old concert footage revue.

The claims being made by the filmmaker and the reviewers, are that this film is about the transformation of Robert Zimmerman into Bob Dylan. So there is good reason why I compared it in my first post to The Motorcycle Diaries, which is also a film purportedly about the transformation of Ernesto Guevara into Commandante Che.

The film sounds as if it is mythologizing, in the same way Motorcycle Diaries' does, rather than offering any new insights into the transformative process of Dylan being consumed by his own self-mythologizing. Dylan (in his youth) was both blind and naive in his ambitions to be noticed, attended to as a star and celebrity, and adored by fans and critics and, well...everyone.

I think the very best, most insightful piece of documentary work ever produced about Dylan was Sam Shepard's "Rolling Thunder Logbook". It is truly the best piece I've ever encountered that puts Dylan's self-mythologizing into a coherent perspective (maybe because Sam Shepard is much better at the game than Dylan could ever hope to be).

You take it from there, guest2.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:45 PM

watch the film and then talk - if you can keep an open mind

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:48 PM

An open mind about what, exactly?

From Sam Shepard's 'Rolling Thunder Logbook':

"Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Dylan..."

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:54 PM

You make it sound that inventing oneself is a bad thing. Everyone does it - you are doing it right now. Who gives a toss?   Watch the movie and keep an open mind.   There is nothing wrong with hype. He sold records, which was his job. Why would anyone care if he "invented himself"?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:56 PM

You seem very proud of your ignorance and superficiality guest2.

When discussing cultural icons, perhaps you should learn what the words mean before you go making a fool of yourself in public.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:58 PM

Nice comeback. It doesn't work

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:05 PM

You are just being combative guest2, for no reason whatsoever. I'm here to discuss the film, the man, and the myth. Not banter with an dumbass. Bye bye.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:09 PM

You arent discussing anything... you made a statement that you wish everyone to take as gospel. When challenged, you insult other peoples intelligence. Shame on you. That is know way to have a discussion   Glad to see you are leaving.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:10 PM

Guest2 - have you never reinvented yourself (when starting a new job, or playing a new club)? It's pretty much part of being human, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:14 PM

And isn't it exciting that we'll see his Bobness giving a proper interview to an equally influential artist?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:23 PM

All performing artists invent their own personas. That is nothing new. It is also nothing new for them to have their personas (and the self-created myths used to project that persona) examined as part of their art.

That was the whole point of my mentioning Sam Shepard and Che Guevara, all cultural icons involved in self-mythologizing themselves into cultural icons in the societies and times they lived in.

As I understand it, sheperdlass, His Bobness is not interviewed by Martin Scorcese in the film, though if I am wrong about that, I'm sure someone will come along and tell us.

I am really looking forward to the film, especially to the new footage of both Dylan and the folk revival scene in the US and Britain.

I'm always curious as to why, in these threads about Dylan, people love to invoke his icon status, but never discuss it?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:27 PM

Sure I have! That is the point I've been trying to make. So many people seem to have a problem with an artist creating an image... who really cares? The product is what they will be judged on

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:29 PM

Maybe because Dylan fans really don't buy into the icon status crap. It seems to be an issue for some non-fans.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:35 PM

And I suspect that Dylan himself doesn't buy the icon status crap.

Even if Scorsese isn't actually putting the questions, his creative input must have been reassuring to someone so notoriously wary of interviews.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:37 PM

For people so interested in this film, I have to say, you don't seem to know much about the it's subject.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:50 PM

Another hypocritcal statement. You would be surprised

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 08:54 PM

Surprisingly, it isn't that easy to find complete reviews of the film online. I'm going to post in it's completeness, the Salon review (since it is a subscription website) for posterity's sake here, then provide links to some others I've found today while journeying around the web looking for reviews.

No direction here
The Bob Dylan-controlled documentary of himself, "No Direction Home," has some odd moments -- Scorsese playing Dylan? -- but offers little new insight into his Bobness.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Steven Hart

Sept. 25, 2005 | "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" (which airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday) is, like the work of its subject, part fraud, part tease and part revelation, shot through with flashes of genius.

A great deal of time, care and talent went into its making, and yet it seems as sloppily made as the tossed-off albums that all but buried Dylan's reputation in the 1980s. Over the course of two installments and three and a half hours -- relentlessly focused on the first five or so years of Dylan's career -- "No Direction Home" offers little that is new and much that is already grindingly familiar to fans of His Bobness. And yet it is tremendously watchable and occasionally rewarding, even if it's apt to leave most viewers with the feeling that they have been served appetizers and dessert without getting so much as a glimpse of the main course.

Is it necessary, in the four decades since Dylan released his first album, to explain why a rock musician deserves a slot in the "American Masters" pantheon? A friend of mine recently spent a frustrating evening with a young woman who said, "Look, I know Dylan's a legend and all, but what's the big deal? Why's he important?"

The only response to such doubters is: If you value popular music as a venue for serious artistic purpose, thank Bob Dylan, who infused rock and folk music with blazing intellectual energy and visionary poetry. If you look back on the late '60s and early '70s as a lost era of pop music ambition and innovation, then thank Bob Dylan, whose 1960s albums were the benchmark that motivated artists across the pop spectrum, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, to stake claims for themselves as something more than purveyors of disposable junk music. And if you despair of the legions of puling singer-songwriters who followed in his wake ... well, don't blame Bob Dylan. The man can't help it if his imitators lack his outsize talent.

Recognize also that this talent came along at a fleeting, never-to-be-repeated moment when the record industry, baffled by rock music but eager to exploit its commercial potential, was still loose enough to give somebody like Dylan the space to grow, and when radio was still capable of making Dylan's 1965 breakthrough "Like a Rolling Stone" into a cultural watershed as well as a pop music landmark. Combine that with a manager, Albert Grossman, who shrewdly gave Dylan mass-market credibility by encouraging mainstream performers to release sweetened versions of his songs while preserving Dylan's own albums as pillars of harsh integrity. By the time mass-market listeners were ready to answer the challenge posed by the promoters at Columbia Records -- "Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan" -- their ears had been made ready by the likes of the Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary. In the fragmented, highly corporatized music industry of today, there may be other artists who could match Dylan's talent, but none will ever equal his impact.

Dylan parted ways with Grossman decades ago, but the emphasis he placed on image manipulation and mystique maintenance was a constant throughout Dylan's career, and "No Direction Home" is best viewed as another addition to Dylan's hall of mirrors. Even the credits are deceptive. This is not "A Martin Scorsese Picture," except in the loosest sort of auteurist terms. As last week's Wall Street Journal made clear, "No Direction Home" is an in-house project from Bob Dylan's management team, conceived as a way to frame Dylan's legacy while the man himself is still around to supervise the work.

The rather desultory interviews with a glowing Joan Baez, a haggard Allen Ginsberg and other figures from Dylan's career were conducted not by Scorsese but by Dylan's manager and staff -- probably just as well, in light of Scorsese's fumbling attempts to interview members of the Band in "The Last Waltz" (a direct inspiration for the earnestly fatuous Marty DiBergi in "This Is Spinal Tap"). The fact that Ginsberg died in April 1997 gives an idea of how long this project has been in the works. The interviews with Dylan himself show the maestro in a disarmingly straightforward mood, offering flashes of the quiet wit and wordplay that make his recent "Chronicles" such an engrossing read.

Scorsese was brought into the project late and allowed to assemble the film only from archival materials vetted by Jeff Rosen, Dylan's manager. Scorsese's presence is most clearly felt in a moment of almost sublime goofiness -- a re-creation of Dylan's notoriously obtuse 1963 speech to the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, with Scorsese doing a Dylan impersonation that wouldn't pass muster at a high school talent show. He even drops the punch line, when Dylan baffled and offended the audience by claiming to feel kinship with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Scorsese follows a skeletal chronology of Dylan's progress from the iron hills of northern Minnesota to the folk clubs of Greenwich Village, but frequently leaps ahead to the clamorous performances of 1965 and 1966, when Dylan enraged the folkie faithful by dropping the Woody Guthrie poses and reinventing himself as a frizzy-haired rock hipster, culminating in the creation of "Like a Rolling Stone." After years of watching grainy bootlegs of "Eat the Document," the aborted documentary of Dylan's 1966 swing through England, it's great to have this footage in a clean, well-mastered form. I'm sorry to report that Scorsese doesn't include the gruesome limousine ride with John Lennon, which shows Dylan deathly ill from a combination of exhaustion and drugs while the Smart Beatle sits frozen behind his shades, clearly terrified that he might say something unhip.

It's all very watchable, but this is such familiar stuff. Heavy-breathing rock critics like Greil Marcus and Paul Williams have devised a veritable Stations of the Cross story line for this period, ending with the motorcycle accident that Dylan used to take himself off the celebrity treadmill and try his hand at something approaching a normal life. (Scorsese, curiously, omits the accident, which would at least have given "No Direction Home" a more shapely narrative.) Personally, I find the post-accident Dylan far more interesting as an artist and a human being -- given a choice between the icy hipster glaring from the cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" and the regretful, passionate husband of "Blood on the Tracks" and "Desire," I'll go for the more mature version. The magnesium-flare brilliance of "Highway 61" and its mid-1960s companions is undeniable, but it doesn't shed much warmth.

"No Direction Home" tells us nothing about Dylan we didn't already know, or thought we knew, but it could hardly have turned out otherwise, given the circumstances of its creation. "I don't know what he thought about," Baez says at one point. "I only know what he gave us." In "No Direction Home," Dylan gives us something to while away a few hours of viewing time, nothing more.


salon.com