NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN (2005) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Martin Scorsese
Bob Dylan: the early years. Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour documentary charts Dylan's life and career from northern Minnesota's Iron Range to the coffee houses of New York City, from 1963's March on Washington to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan went electric and pissed off a lot of his fans. The focus is on Dylan the artist, with lots of great archival footage providing the political and cultural context. Toward the end, it becomes a reflection on celebrity and the absurd demands of fame, as Dylan reaches icon status and becomes a template on which the public projects whatever it wants to be there. A series of news-conference clips is especially revealing, with Dylan artfully turning every question back on the person who asked it. Through it all, Dylan remains elusive, constantly toying with his image and identity, shrugging off labels as if they were second-hand coats, and then changing again before another label can stick. What's astonishing, when you think about it, isn't just the amount of material Dylan cranked out in the five years the movie zeroes in on, but that he's still at it more than 40 years later, writing, touring, recording, and leaving 'em guessing as he goes. As a chronicle of his ongoing work, "No Direction Home" could be just the beginning.
