Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Dylan Two
The second part of the Dylan documentary directed by Scorsese just finished up.
Scorsese is talking now to Charlie Rose on a post doc interview; nothing much is being said. Scorsese is a scholar of film, but at root, he is a visceral, a wordless director — a man of gut rhythms and canny taste, not insight.
Dylan's confidence in his work, in what he wanted to do, and his helplessness, in not being able to do anything else, is the real drama of his life as a performer. In this second part of the documentary Scorsese shows the journey from acoustic to electric, from personal to public, from tradition to growth. The second part of this film is really a portrait of the audience as fame maker. The audience couldn't accept Dylan's need to go electric; Dylan's colleagues couldn't accept it because they felt threatened, left behind.
They manufactured reasons: he was fake; you “can't hear the lyrics”. Unwilling to go along for the ride, the audience was telling Dylan: “we made you famous, and now you do what we made you famous for.” Dylan at once seemed indifferent, he claimed not to hear the boos, and tacitly acquiescent — the first part of his concerts was a concession: Dylan played acoustic.
The prefiguring of much in contemporary culture is all there. Dylan complained and ultimately was verbally beaten mute in a press conference by the desire of the public to have performers provide answers. It was like witnessing an assault of the uncomprehending on a guy who didn't know where his lyrics or ideas came from — he didn't know what to say so he was nervous and embarrassed and underneath, contemptuous. You think of Charles Barkley saying, “I'm not a role model.” The desire of the audience was to make the loosely knit creative Dylan into a slick tightly woven ideologue of protest; now performers lead the charge, they don't fight for individuality, but want to be spokesmen for politically correct agenda, an easy route to approval while affecting “courageousness”.