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- Wasn't the whole thing too long?
- Doesn't the film basically ignore 1973 or so to present day?
But yeah, I would have liked to have had more of the later story of the man, and if that meant less divorce and 1966, I could have lived w/ that trade off for sure, tho I found Charlotte Gainsbourg irresistable on screen.
Apparently Haynes' buddy, an Israeli Jew who helped write the screenplay, became fascinated w/ the Christian period and kept trying to convince Haynes to get more of it into the film. The pacing on that section felt very rushed although the visuals of the fictionalized Vineyard Fellowship were spot on, and the version of Pressing On was great.
BTW, I dunno who did the version of Goin' to Acapulo in the Riddle, Mo. sequence, but that was great. Gotta get the soundtrack.
And I couldn't believe how few people in the audience got the jokes--the panthers shot, Julianne Moore's Joan Baez routines...hilarious.
A question for ya...coming in to the movie, where did you fall on the Dylanology axis?
I love the Billy the Kid section, and I love the basement tapes--the original tapes, all 4 cds worth of 'em w/ not only the original songs but the gid tanner covers, the goofs, everything. An irreducible, accidental masterpiece and, in the end, perhaps the most influential music of Dylan's career. To me the BTK section of the movie was a great, figurative representation of the cultural weight of the basement tapes. I'm just wondering how much of that section was accessible beyond the priestly class of Dylan loons.
Shallow perch on the Dylanology axis. We sang "Blowing in the Wind" at sleepaway camp in Maine, Jewish girls with counselors from the Midwest. Then I spent a year on Trailside Country School with the brother of John Cohen, singing and playing "traditional music" all over the country...memories of transgressing by sneakily singing motown and being reprimanded. I loved the Scorsese documentary, which I think is playing again tonight on PBS. Interestingly, we went to see the Dylan/Costello double bill last month. Costello played solo on his acoustic guitars for about 40 minutes, sublime, beautiful. The Dylan described by Jacob Rubin (perfectly) appeared, the audience happy, excited, after two songs, deflated by the masked man from the crypt. Guess what, yeah, we left, my friend spending the rest of the evening croaking up Grandpa Dylan's rasp. But E. Costello, perfect. So, not a Dylanologist, but alive through most of it, listening. The movie for me was equally moribund.
Excellent site.
I absolutely loved the film. Once my head stops spinning, I definitely need to see it again. Especially the outlaw sequence, which was definitely the most confusing - perhaps because I'm also not a Dylanologist. I did feel like the entire flavor of that piece was pure Fellini. I assumed that was intentional.
To clarify a question from earlier, that was Jim James (of My Morning Jacket fame) who led Going to Acapulco. I think he may have been in the whiteface as an homage to the Rolling Thunder Review, but I'm not certain. Finally, I believe he was backed up by Calexico.