Scorsese, Dylan and the Dead

Submitted by benedictdaviesj... on 06th October 2005

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In response to Rob Cawston's excellent article, I'd like to post a different reaction to Scorsese's "No Direction Home". It was a bold and clever move to frame the story of Dylan's early career around the now infamous '66 tour of Britain. Bob as the Messiah of Rock and victim of his own Judasic treachery, crucified by and crucifying a mocking crowd. The Icon and self-iconoclast coexisting beneath a heap of sweaty curls (did Dylan use curlers?) at his Calvary moment. Nice one, Martin. Dylan's story was presented as a neat 7 years of development climaxing in genius. And that is fine. What was less fine was the caption, among several, at the end of the film which read something like "Bob Dylan continued to write the odd song". Dylan neither died corporally or creatively in that mysterious motorcycle accident. "Burned out from exhaustion and buried in the hail" he may well have been, but the Messiah rose again and has spent over 35 further years contemplating, quipping and bemoaning on life inside and out of the tomb. Sure the period of '64 -'66 was his most prolific and brilliant and he was never to return to the cutting edge of cool, but through his years of cultural irrelevence Dylan's introspective musical conmtemplations (often missing, but frequently hitting the creative heights of the mid '60s) are worthy of more than Scorsese's throw-away line. I just think its lazy. We box-up our cultural greats into neat little packages, and when the time comes to re-appraise them we unribbon that box rather than exploring what may lie outside it. The post Messianic Dylan is flawed, ugly and erratic but has moments of greatness. Listen to "Oh Mercy", "Blood on the Tracks" or "Time out of mind" and tell me different. In 20 years time when Arena look back at Martin Scorsese, I can't help wondering how he will be packaged, and what will be seen as irrelevent to his story.

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Robertcawston

12 October 2005 - 5:21pm

I agree with your main point. The danger of documentaries such as Scorsese's is that they become viewed as the definitive evaluation on a particular subject. This was the reason I started and ended my article with reference to the album John Wesley Harding, released as a quieter and deliberately enigmatic statement from Dylan to distance himself from the hurricane of fame. In defence of Scorsese I don't he was aiming at neatly slicing history into easily edible pieces. His portrait was, for me, an attempt to understand the cultural and musical forces that both produced Dyaln and that Dyaln gave voice to. I was left wanting to know more about "what Dylan did next" but probably because Scorsese had done such a good job at portraying the musical roots, ambitions and changes of the early artist. The very title "No Direction Home" implies a continuing journey, as does the interviews with the present-day Dylan. The blame for the neat cultural packaging should lie at the feet of the BBC who seemed to hype the documentary as a major cultural event delivering Dylan into the popular consciousness as if for the first time.

Robertcawston

14 October 2005 - 3:37pm

N McKie writes (posted on his behalf): Having had 30 years with Dylan and his music I often think commentators miss some very salient things about the man. He is first and foremeost an actor, or a 'shape-shifter' as Liam Clancy once called him. As listeners we must take on that the man is trying to protect himself to some extent, his music keeping us all at bay about learning anything about him. He couples acting with lyrical chaos. He didn't sit down and construct too many of his songs I think. He was the guy that brought all the bits together. Someone should write an article about how Bob Dylan is essentially a bit mischevious and uses random-ness in the construction of his lyrics. This immediately appeals to the erudite and scholarly as a challenge to 'see' into the mind of Dylan like some sort of test. Well that's just not what the man was up to and you can look all you like but there is nothing there of a deliberate nature except the universal generalisations which he often added to great effect answers blowing in the wind and all that. All his stuff is about the listener interpreting aspects of his own life with the Dylan lyric in mind. Where Dylan does excel is musically and the myth that he is not a good musician (which he propagates well) is bull. After playing the guitar for some 30 years myself I finally came to realise that it was easier to copy Eric Clapton (and a host of others) than it was to copy Bob himself – I mean even on a recording. I can do a few like him now but 2/3 songs at most. Eric Clapton has played with Dylan many times and if you ever look at them on stage its not hard to spot the master player. Clapton moves his fingers fast – in fact so fast that it wouldn't matter which note he hits – but Dylan is very different indeed! I can play all his songs the way his band plays them but when it comes to the man himself this is very very hard. He uses notes that just don't belong in the keys he is playing in and he puts them at positions in a sequence where they have great effect. I do think he thought about this aspect of his work very hard indeed. Two other points: Bob Dylan did more for Gospel music in the last 30 years than any other song writer with his two albums 'Slow Train Coming' and 'Saved'. These should never be dismissed as a religious conversion-type-thing. Dylan has always been religious. Christianity is actually a main Dylan theme. He will do his best to deny it but he litters his work with Biblical reference either obvious or otherwise. Those albums, particularly ‘Saved', created a maelstrom in the black Christian communities in the USA. They represent some of the first new gospel songs in decades and some are just tremendous and delivered by BD with serious conviction. The other album that is underrated by critics is 'Street Legal'. If ever there was an answer to the 70's Disco nonsense then that's the album – the song 'Changing of the Guards' really does make you wonder what 'Boogie Nights' was ever all about!