| September 26th, 2005 05:59 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
Just finished watching the first 2 hours of Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan movie 'No Direction Home' on BBC2.
I must say, it's one of the best music docus I've ever seen in my life. Wonderful build up, fantastic music snippets and a great job putting Dylan's first years as an artist into historical perspective. One can never understand where he was coming from in his music and lyrics without painting a picture of politics and society. Judas!
Part 2 tomorrow night, 21 hours UK time, BBC2
It will be shown on NPS in Holland around Christmas btw, also in 2 parts, they just bought it.
Gary, you seen it???
----
"How to spot a communist: he sometimes carries a guitar" |
| September 26th, 2005 06:32 PM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
I've just watched it too. Although I do enjoy Dylan's music and undoubtedly, there was some fine footage and interviews in the programme, I found it dwelled a little too deep for my liking and I almost nodded off once or twice.
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| September 26th, 2005 06:57 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Angiegirl wrote:
Gary, you seen it???
my absence here all evening would suggest an answer in the affirmative!
Fucking superb stuff. Well worth the wait |
| September 26th, 2005 07:04 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Honky Tonk Man wrote:
I've just watched it too. Although I do enjoy Dylan's music and undoubtedly, there was some fine footage and interviews in the programme, I found it dwelled a little too deep for my liking
well..uh...thats the point in a 4 hour documentary covering 5 years of someone's career! (especially as what footage there is of Dylan up until he became famous is somewhat minimal)
Try watching, as a comparison, a Vh1 or MTV documentary to show how it shouldn't be done - the kind of braindead crap you usually see now is specifically aimed at a generation with the attention span of a squirrel
Great work by Scorsese, Dylan and everyone involved. Its not just a bio of Dylan. Part 1 is effectively a history lesson in 20th century American music, putting Dylan's life and work in the middle of the story. |
| September 26th, 2005 07:13 PM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
well..uh...thats the point in a 4 hour documentary covering 5 years of someone's career! (especially as what footage there is of Dylan up until he became famous is somewhat minimal)
Try watching, as a comparison, a Vh1 or MTV documentary to show how it shouldn't be done - the kind of braindead crap you usually see now is specifically aimed at a generation with the attention span of a squirrel
Great work by Scorsese, Dylan and everyone involved. Its not just a bio of Dylan. Part 1 is effectively a history lesson in 20th century American music, putting Dylan's life and work in the middle of the story.
Don't get me wrong. It was a well thought out and thoroughly comprehensive documentary on arguably, the greatest musical icon of the 20th centaury. I did enjoy it; I guess I just wasn't contemplating a history on the whole American folk music scene.
I love the footage of the fans moaning about his change of direction. Priceless stuff.
I'm actually really looking forward to part two.
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| September 26th, 2005 07:13 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
Great work by Scorsese, Dylan and everyone involved. Its not just a bio of Dylan. Part 1 is effectively a history lesson in 20th century American music, putting Dylan's life and work in the middle of the story.
Exactly what I meant in my 1st post, very enlightning it was! |
| September 26th, 2005 07:15 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
my absence here all evening would suggest an answer in the affirmative!
Well, as I was kinda busy watching it, I didn't have time to see you were absent here, hehehe  |
| September 26th, 2005 07:15 PM |
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| The_Worst |
I bought it over the weekend...The first time I watched it I thought it was good. The second time I watched it I thought it was great! There's alot to be picked up in the way it is edited & how the lyrics & the 2005, 1966, & the early years footage goes back & forth. I was very impressed!! Can't wait to watch it a third time!! |
| September 26th, 2005 07:21 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Honky Tonk Man wrote:
Don't get me wrong. It was a well thought out and thoroughly comprehensive documentary on arguably, the greatest musical icon of the 20th centaury. I did enjoy it; I guess I just wasn't contemplating a history on the whole American folk music scene.
I love the footage of the fans moaning about his change of direction. Priceless stuff.
I'm actually really looking forward to part two.
the 'braindead generation' quip wasnt aimed at you, by the way - just a generalization about the dumbing down of entertainment as a whole in recent years because of the way audiences have changed. |
| September 26th, 2005 07:21 PM |
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| scratched |
Fuck, I missed it.
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| September 27th, 2005 06:52 AM |
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| charlotte |
Posted on Tue, Sep. 27, 2005
Dylan narrates his own story on PBS
Scorsese film looks at the first 25 years of this music legend's journey
RICHARD HARRINGTON
Washington Post
"NO DIRECTION HOME"
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"American Masters" series, PBS, 9 p.m. Channel 30
Who'd have guessed that Bob Dylan enjoys looking back?
Yet there he is, at the center of the 3 1/2-hour, Martin Scorsese-directed "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," not just as its subject and soundtrack source but, shockingly, as the essential narrator of his own story.
That's because the normally press-averse Dylan sat down for 10 hours of interviews with his manager and archivist, Jeff Rosen, and riffled through his back pages in a surprisingly engaging and accessible manner.
This is definitely not the obscure, obtuse or obfuscating Dylan who lends himself to parody, but the lucid memoirist of 2004's "Chronicles Volume 1" (out this week in paperback).
"No Direction Home" covers the first 25 years of Dylan's journey. He goes from being a complete unknown in Hibbing, Minn., to becoming (despite how much he hates it) the voice of his generation and the most profoundly influential songwriter in rock history. (The DVD release via Paramount precedes its airing on PBS' "American Masters" series, 9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Channel 30)
The Scorsese film draws from the Rosen interview and others Rosen conducted with two dozen key Dylan contemporaries and associates, as well as from the extensive Bob Dylan Archive, including outtakes from D.A. Pennebaker's classic "Don't Look Back" documentary and a never-released sequel.
Scorsese was handed a lot of raw material (he did no new interviews), and he's managed to impose coherence through superb editing.
He has added context through newsreel footage that makes "No Direction Home" as much a chronicle of the culturally and politically chaotic '60s as it is a portrait of the artist as a young man.
Better yet, Scorsese does it in a manner that should make believers of those who came to Dylan late and never understood just how revolutionary he was, while also pleasing longtime believers with loads of rare material that has previously circulated only among dedicated Dylan bootleggers and collectors.
"No Direction Home" opens with Dylan's recollections about growing up in Hibbing and his brief stopover in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota, and his warm reflections on the early rock 'n' rollers and country, blues and pop singers who fueled his imagination, as well as the folk music that increasingly absorbed him -- Dylan says "folk delivered in one song how I felt about life."
But the film's main narrative arc is 1961 to 1966, certainly the richest and most rewarding part of Dylan's ongoing career, as well as the most documented on film, via television performances, press conferences, civil rights rallies, Newport Folk Festivals (from 1963 to 1965) and concert tours. After the 1966 motorcycle accident that took him off the road for eight years, Dylan would never again be as accessible or responsive to the media.
In 1961, Dylan arrived in New York to seek out his greatest inspiration, the ailing Woody Guthrie ("you could listen to his songs and actually learn how to live"), and to immerse himself in a Greenwich Village folk scene that he quickly galvanized through the richness and substance of his original songwriting. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg recalls weeping the first time he heard the apocalyptic imagery and poetic urgency of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," realizing that a torch had been passed to a new generation.
Five years later, Dylan's controversial and aptly titled "electric" transformation changed rock as much as his earlier work changed folk. The process actually began a year earlier at the Newport Folk Festival, when Dylan plugged in with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on a supercharged "Maggie's Farm," electrifying the music and shocking the folkie faithful. He did it again in his 1966 tour of England with what later became the Band. Along with the fractious Newport appearance, footage from that contentious tour is seen here for the first time, including the famous anonymous "Judas!" shout -- and Dylan's furious response via a supercharged "Like a Rolling Stone." A whole section dissects that groundbreaking song, which signaled a seismic shift in popular music.
"No Direction Home" is fully loaded with music and insights: DVD extras include seven full performances from '60s television shows and concerts, several covers by interview subjects and a few other rarities.
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| September 27th, 2005 06:59 AM |
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| Zeeta |
t'was awesome very much enjoyed the "New York" folk part of the doco. The Clancy Bros were superb and a great story about "House of the Rising Sun"!
One tends to forget just how fucking excellent Dylan's early stuff is.
In that vien I played The Freewheelin' at full volume this morning especially A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall! Inspirational and essential... |
| September 27th, 2005 07:53 AM |
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| Nasty Habits |
I think the point in delving so deeply into the folk scene of the early 50s and before is that Dylan is nothing without deep deep roots, so it's necessary to explore them roots to even begin to understand who Dylan is. It also finally gave me reason to appreciate Odetta, for which I am grateful.
If anything, it doesn't go deep enough. Where the hell is Ramblin' Jack Elliot in terms of early influences? If anybody taught Dylan something about Woody Guthrie and the whole harmonica rack schtick, it was Jack.
Anyway, one big revelation for me in part one is another mystery: What divine hand abandoned that guitar and that record player with "drifting too far from shore" in the house where Bob Dylan grew up?
"Not to many pop groups like that."
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| September 27th, 2005 02:25 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Nasty Habits wrote:
I think the point in delving so deeply into the folk scene of the early 50s and before is that Dylan is nothing without deep deep roots, so it's necessary to explore them roots to even begin to understand who Dylan is. It also finally gave me reason to appreciate Odetta, for which I am grateful.
wasnt that footage of her amazing?? what a voice! |
| September 27th, 2005 05:38 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
Is this movie coming out on DVD by any chance? I would love to have it! I'm gonna record it on video when it'll be on Dutch TV in a few months.
Brilliant. These press conferences were hilarious weren't they? Reminded me a lot of those press meetings the Stones had in the sixties, with these silly questions!
'How many artists working in the vineyard you toil in are protest singers?'
-'About 136'
'About 136? Or 136 exactly?'
-'No, about 136. Either that, or 142.'
"Just suck your glasses, Bob!"
Still laughing here! |
| September 27th, 2005 05:49 PM |
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| BillyBoll |
Yes. Out on DVD in November in Europe I think. With many extras apparently! |
| September 27th, 2005 06:35 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
Fantastic, thanks! |
| September 27th, 2005 06:39 PM |
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| Gazza |
The DVD is actually out in the UK next Monday (3rd October)
with about 45 minutes of bonus footage
Two words for part 2 of this film - "fuckin' hell"
[Edited by Gazza] |
| September 27th, 2005 06:54 PM |
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| Prodigal Son |
I love how Bob takes all the scorn with a sense of humour when some official comes in to tell him someone threatened to shoot him on stage and Bob says "I don't mind gettin shot, I just don't like having to hear about it before the show." And then later when he and the Band escape into the limo and he sarcastically gripes "Uh, always booing. They like to boo. They buy up all the tickets so quickly just do that. It's hard stay in tune with all that booing." It was pretty funny. Dylan's not such a crabby guy in his personal life, maybe a bit of enigma but not a total creep or jerk at all. |
| September 28th, 2005 04:25 AM |
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| Zeeta |
Yeah I loved it when he was leaving a press conference and was gettin hassled by photographers and just shouts: "Heeeeey! Come on, I don't do that to you!"
LOL!
On the whole a superb documentary.If I had one comment it would be that it tended to focus too much on the "controversial" going electric gigs. I'd have prefered more studio footage and other juicy performances. However, the going electric gigs were awesome.
Also an amazing story about the organ on Like a Rolling Stone! Al Kooper just blagged the gig on the organ! He didnt even know the chords and just came in a moment after the chord had been played. And hence the unique timing of the songs!
As Gazza said "Fuckin Hell"!!!! |
| September 28th, 2005 04:56 AM |
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| beer |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
The DVD is actually out in the UK next Monday (3rd October)
with about 45 minutes of bonus footage
Two words for part 2 of this film - "fuckin' hell"
[Edited by Gazza]
it came out here in the US last tuesday. a friend wanted to borrow my No Direction Home DVD the day after i bought it, Haha! no fucking way...
= |
| September 28th, 2005 05:27 AM |
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| James Burton |
"..I don't mind being shot, I just don't dig hearing about it.."
The most awesome biopic ever. Christ, SEEING the may '66 footage and the fan reaction was unbelievable. After having the audio all this time, seeing Like A Rolling Stone was a mega goose pimple moment!
He was and still is one cool fucker. |
| September 28th, 2005 05:55 AM |
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| charlotte |
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000A0GP4K/qid=1127901246/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5678521-9131264?v=glance&s=dvd |
| September 28th, 2005 11:09 AM |
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| Gazza |
and theres more :
Press Release Source: Eagle Rock Entertainment
For the First Time on DVD: "Festival!" the Newport Folk Festival Film (1963 - 1966) Captures Dylan, Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary and Legendary Folk, Blues and Country Artists Participating in the Birth of 60s Counterculture
Tuesday September 27, 10:25 am ET
NEW YORK, NY--(MARKET WIRE)--Sep 27, 2005 -- Eagle Rock Entertainment, the leading independent source for high-quality music audio/visual programming, this fall will release "Festival!," the trailblazing documentary film released theatrically in 1967 that brings together four years of highlights from the Newport Folk Festival, the pioneering American music festival throughout the 1960s. Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Murray Lerner, "Festival!" notably captures Bob Dylan's legendary first electric performance. Segments from "Festival!" are prominently featured in the recently released Dylan documentary, "No Direction Home," directed by Martin Scorsese.
Along with Dylan's performance of "Maggie's Farm" backed by members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and his rehearsal of "Like a Rolling Stone," the film also boasts a constellation of American music stars like Johnny Cash, Joan Baez and Howlin' Wolf, plus an array of seminal folk and blues artists like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
On its original theatrical release, "Festival!" was nominated for an Academy Award and honored at every prestigious film festival of the day. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "It is a masterpiece," while The Hollywood Reporter called it, "one of the best documentary films in years and one of the best American films of this year." The Christian Science Monitor praised its "sharp-edged honesty which induces one to wish it would go on forever." "Festival!" set the bar high, and as the first of the youth counterculture festival films, had considerable influence on every music documentary that would follow -- "Gimme Shelter," "Woodstock," etc.
As well as presenting the 60s musical leading lights, "Festival!" documents the initial creation of America's idealistic counterculture. Adherents of the civil rights movement, student activism, and anti-materialism had gathered not simply to relax and celebrate American folkways, but to create a new form of self-expression out of the roots of folk tradition.
By 1967, this youth movement would explode, fomenting the cultural revolution that ended a war and remade society in profound ways.
Throughout, there is amazing music. The big stars of 60s folk music are represented in full: Peter, Paul and Mary sing their signature versions of "If I Had A Hammer," "The Times They Are A Changin'," and "Blowin' in The Wind," and Pete Seeger, Donovan, Judy Collins and Joan Baez each deliver impassioned performances. The film includes aforementioned blues legends like Howlin' Wolf, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, as well as the Chicago big band blues revivalists the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The film also includes music that spans the width and breadth of the American folk vernacular. Well-known idioms like Appalachian mountain music and gospel share time with more obscure styles like "drum and fife" music from Mississippi, "Sacred Harp" shape-note choirs and vocal groups from the Georgia Sea Isles.
Lerner is a multifaceted filmmaker who has been an innovator in every area in which he has worked. He won an Academy Award for "From Mao To Mozart: Isaac Stern In China," one of the first documentaries to present the new post-cultural revolution society in China. He also created the first 3-D film for EPCOT, "Magic Journeys," still considered the best 3-D film ever made.
Lerner has also created a number of other prestigious music films. After Festival, he would go on to film 1970's troubled Isle of Wight Festival which would be released in 1995 as "Message to Love: the Isle of Wight Festival," followed by individual releases of full performances at that festival including "The Who: Live At The Isle Of Wight" (Eagle Rock 2004), "Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight" (2002); "Jethro Tull: Nothing is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight" (Eagle Rock 2005) and the Banff World Television Festival Rockie Award-winning "Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue."
Eagle Rock is proud to be associated with the first DVD release of this classic film.
Eagle Rock Entertainment is one of the leading independent sources for music audio and audio/visual programming, which it releases worldwide on DVD, CD and other formats, as well as through channels such as television and VOD. Eagle Rock's mission is to bring music fans high quality music audio and audio/ visual content from the broadest range of artists, with superior production, sound and high definition visuals, as well as other historically significant releases. Eagle Vision's extensive catalog covers every genre of music, and includes the "Classic Albums" documentary series, which tells the stories behind some of the greatest albums in rock history, and "Live at Montreux," which features performances from top artists at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival.
The company's record imprints include frontline artist label Eagle Records, and the hard rock/ heavy metal label Spitfire Records. Eagle Media releases a variety of comedy, television and fact-based programming. Eagle Vision, Eagle Records, Eagle Media, Eagle Eye Media and Spitfire are imprints of Eagle Rock Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S., which is a part of Eagle Rock Entertainment, Ltd. The company's North American headquarters are in New York City. Its corporate headquarters are in London, with offices in Toronto, Paris and Hamburg
[Edited by Gazza] |
| September 28th, 2005 06:38 PM |
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| Prodigal Son |
To see Dylan go from wild-eyed and determined in 63 or so to blasted and completely drained by 66 was amazing. His humour was intact but his singing, drawl and press conferences showed him to be completely at the end of his tether. To watch his pressers with all the funny answers and him snapping photos at one of them. Where he was having fun with admirers who claimed not be booing, he said "That's real nice, can you help me out and round up all the people that were booing?" And those autograph-seekers he kept resisting, "Hey, if you needed my autograph I'd give it to you!" And then the one guy looks at the camera and goes "What's wrong with him today?"
Wow, it was a great documentary. It only reinforced my passion for all things Dylan. My favourite rock band is the Stones, my favourite pop band/act is the Beatles, but my favourite rock solo artist is definitely Bob Dylan. It's quite inspiring to see him at work in this footage. With all the hoopla, it's no wonder he's essentially kept himself out of the public's media glare. He's virtually invisible in the media yet he's still a force because he continually records and tours. It goes to show you don't have to market and cater to the consumer to have a continuing effect in the world. |
| September 29th, 2005 09:51 AM |
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| Martha |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
my absence here all evening would suggest an answer in the affirmative!
Fucking superb stuff. Well worth the wait
Here Here! I'll drink to that!!!!! I'm over the moon!
"Ain't that somethin'?" |
| September 29th, 2005 09:57 AM |
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| Martha |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
wasnt that footage of her amazing?? what a voice!
Her performance STUNNED me.....WOW!
Who is the group singing "Drifting to Far From the Shore"? Stanley Brothers? Bill Monroe? Reno and Smiley? I can't place the group. |
| September 29th, 2005 11:55 AM |
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| texile |
i missed this.......it was on all week on pbs and i missed it, forgot - i had been waiting for it ever since scorsese became involved...fucking hurricane didn't even hit and it destroyed my notiong of circular time. |
| September 29th, 2005 12:19 PM |
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| justinkurian |
I would love to see a sequel:
Dylan in talks on No Direction Home sequel
Bob Dylan is reportedly in talks over a sequel to Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home documentary.
Susan Lacy, executive producer of the two part film, says "preliminary discussions" are already taking place.
No Direction Home, in which Dylan talked extensively about his life on camera for the first time, follows his career up until 1966.
Ms Lacy revealed that a follow-up was under considertion during a webchat with Dylan fans.
She said: "We are having preliminary discussions about that. We are researching that right now. There's
not as much material and it's not as dense as the material we had from the sixties. There are big gaps in it."
Although no official figures have yet been released, Lacy described ratings for No Direction Home, which aired this week in both the UK and US as "fabulous."
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_1553674.html
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| September 29th, 2005 04:08 PM |
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| Sleepy London Clown |
That was a superb documentary, something the Stones career is crying out for.
Did anyone else notice Tom Keylock in a few scenes? Guess he must have been acting as security/chauffeur for Dylan and any other visiting rock stars? Wearing that same red jacket as in Hyde Park film, although his hair is a fair bit shorter. |
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