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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Posted on Sun, May. 21,2006
Dylan, revisited
HIBBING:A new documentary on Bob Dylan's early influences ends up as an ode to the Midwest.
BY LEE BLOOMQUIST
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
HIBBING - Like many Bob Dylan fans, filmmaker Mary Feidt and her friend Natalie Goldberg, a creative writer, came to Hibbing to learn more about the songwriter's formative years.
They came away with much more.
"We kind of marched around and did things that people would do as a fan," said Feidt, a filmmaker from Santa Fe, N.M. "We went to B.J.'s (Dylan's high school English teacher B.J. Rolfzen) house, and B.J. started talking. After about 10 minutes, I said, 'We have a story.'
"What we found out is that this is an interesting town and an interesting part of the world. This (film) is as much about Hibbing as it is about Bob Dylan. It's about how the place where you grew up affects who you are."
"Tangled up in Bob," a 68-minute documentary tracing Dylan's upbringing in Hibbing, gets its first public screening at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Hibbing Community College theater.
The screening kicks off Dylan Days -- a music, writing and arts celebration.
This year, the event includes a "Blood on the Tracks" concert, a singer/songwriter competition, literary readings and a bus tour.
Dylan was born in Duluth as Robert Zimmerman and raised in Hibbing.
His 65th birthday is Wednesday.
"We've been getting a lot of attention every year," said Aaron Brown, Dylan Days spokesman. "We get a lot of Dylan pilgrims who have followed Dylan's career, and we've gotten international attention."
Feidt's original film, more than three years in the making, will be the center of attention on the opening day of the four-day event.
Feidt and Goldberg first came to Hibbing in December 2003 to begin filming. Goldberg is a native of Long Island, N.Y., who now lives in Santa Fe.
"When we went up there, the idea was believing that Dylan was a genius and the voice of our generation," Feidt said. "We said, 'Let's see if this place has anything to do with what you've become.' We did find out a lot about him. I believe he took a lot of things from Hibbing that were a part of his life."
In the film, Goldberg acts as a guide. She talks to Hibbing residents who knew Dylan, visits local sites linked to Dylan and has a coffee conversation with Rolfzen at his home.
"It's just a wonderful film, and ultimately it's not about Bob," said Goldberg, the author of 10 books that have been translated into 14 languages. "It's about all of us. It's really more about Hibbing, place and the Midwest. It's a sweetheart poem to Hibbing."
During filming, Goldberg said she fell in love with Hibbing and its people.
"To tell you the truth, I expected them to be more rough," Goldberg said. "What I found were people that are open, warm, intelligent and accepting of us. I just came back from France, and I tell you what -- I'd rather be in Hibbing."
Dylan gained a lot from Hibbing, she said.
"If you read 'Chronicles,' he talks about the weather all the time," said Goldberg. "And even now, on his first radio show on XM Radio, his first show was about the weather. I also think he was influenced in that he continued making new songs and not just playing the old ones," Goldberg said. "And that's a Minnesota value."
The film has received a private showing in Santa Fe.
After its debut in Hibbing, Feidt hopes to show it at film festivals and release it to the public.
In addition to footage shot in Hibbing, the crew traveled to Shreveport, La., to interview radio personalities who worked at KWKA, an AM station that Dylan listened to as a youth, and from which he ordered rhythm and blues records. Another portion of the film is shot in Dinkytown, a coffeehouse neighborhood in Minneapolis that Dylan frequented.
Dylan's fascination with polka music and with his Jewish heritage on the Iron Range also are explored in the film. Iron Range people and local scenes are shown.
"I wanted to go home to Minnesota and tell a story," said Feidt, whose mother grew up on the Iron Range. "It's kind of a valentine to Minnesota."
The film isn't a Dylan biography, she said.
Instead, it's designed to leave viewers pondering how their childhood affected their adult life.
"There's a story of a Dylan childhood everywhere," Feidt said. "In the last scene, she (Goldberg) goes home to her hometown. It's all sort of about what she learned about Dylan and herself. What we learned is you can go looking for Bob Dylan in Hibbing, but you won't find him -- you may find somebody else."
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Pensioner Dylan is forever young
Cambridge Evening News
May 20,2006
IN THE 60s, Bob Dylan was the voice of youthful protest, his songs soundtracking everything from the civil rights movement to a generation's outrage over Vietnam.
But even the voice of youth has to grow old some time and, this week, the man born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 officially becomes a pensioner.
Not that he has any intention of settling down. Dylan has been on a "never-ending" tour since 1988, and plays his latest batch of live shows in the UK next month.
One fan who's already bought his ticket is John Nye, from Cambridge, who has seen Dylan more times than he can remember over the past 40 years.
"My first concert was the Albert Hall in '66, when I was 15," says John, now 55. "That was my musical awakening. I went home with my ears ringing, absolutely mesmerised."
That passion for Dylan never waned and, in 1984, John got together with friends John Stokes and Chris Cooper to form the Cambridge Bob Dylan Society.
Still going strong after 22 years, it is now the longest-running Dylan society in the country and regularly attracts between 50 and 80 members.
"We're a meeting place for Dylan fans," says John, who still runs the society with John and Chris, plus more recent recruit Keith Agar. "We fill a niche; Dylan's always been very secretive about himself and fans always wanted to get a little closer to him. They want to hear more about him and understand what he's up to and keep in touch with developments."
The society meets every two months at The Boathouse pub in Chesterton Road, Cambridge.
Members swap Dylan anecdotes and opinions, watch rare video footage and, occasionally, welcome live Dylan tribute artists or authors who have written biographies of the great man.
"It's very informal - it's more like a friends' society, really," explains John. "Around 20 or 30 of the people have been coming along since the beginning, while others come and go.
"People come along to be entertained
* Dylan described himself as a song and dance man years ago. He's there for entertainment, and so are we."
Sadly, the society has never had any contact with Dylan himself. "I don't think he even knows we exist," laughs John. "Dylan lives a very private life. He's not a great communicator."
Not in conversation, maybe. But through his music, Bob Dylan is one of the great communicators of the age.
"Dylan's big achievements are threefold - as a songwriter, vocalist and musician," says John. "As a vocalist, he tried to break the notion that a singer had to have a conventional good voice. He sings with a very natural voice, and that opened doors for other people to do the same.
"As a musician, he sparked several genres of music, including electrified folk rock and country rock. And as a songwriter he pioneered different schools of songwriting, from confessional singer-songwriting to the hallucinatory stream of consciousness type of songs. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't have had Strawberry Fields Forever or a Whiter Shade of Pale or anything like that. He was a huge influence on The Beatles and his influence is still seen today (Saturday, 20 May), with bands like Coldplay and Oasis.
He's still as relevant as ever."
As for turning 65, John doesn't think his hero will use the landmark birthday as an opportunity to look back.
"Dylan always looks to the future," he says. "He's still writing, still touring - and he's started presenting his own radio show. The famous documentary film about Dylan was called Don't Look Back, and he never does."
* The society meets on the last Friday of every other month at The Boathouse, Cambridge. The next meeting is on Friday from 8pm.
Visit
http://www.keme.co.uk/~nye/cambridge.htm
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| MrPleasant |
Does he get to punch Sara? Er... I mean the punchbag? (I heard he shadowboxes.) |
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