Martin Scorsese's film No Direction Home is a work of art about a work of art:  a living documentary about a living documentary.  Presented by Apple Computer and released in 2005, this cinematic masterpiece touched me deeply, and will resonate in my heart and mind for life.  Its subject however, Bob Dylan, a man I met again last night for what seemed like the very first time, will live forever.

 

As with most of Scorsese's works (Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, Raging Bull), his latest movie simply transcends the merely "written" review of its greatness.  Why?  It's quite simple, at least in this case:  the transcendent artist he attempts to capture simply defies description.  And that, of course, was the whole point.  Weren't you paying attention at all, Mr. Jones?

 

I'll just admit it right now.  I can't do it, or him, justice.  Scorsese or Dylan.  So let's get on with it, then.

 

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Bob Dylan was a genius of language.  I have to believe that Scorsese's masterful camera-angle on Dylan was influenced greatly by Andy Warhol's take on the whole thing in 1965.  Warhol, intuitively aware of the inherent dangers in trying to "categorize" or "label" an animal like Dylan, simply filled his lens to overflowing with Bob's face for several soundless, stunning minutes.  There he was, a 24-year-old Dylan, simply "looking" into the camera, his huge, wide-set eyes betraying no emotion I'm familiar with, or can describe in meaningful terms.  The youthful face I saw in these priceless Warhol segments didn't contain a trace of what could be called cleverness, guile, wit, arrogance, happiness, or even modesty.  It's like Bob was just, well, being Bob.  I fell in love with Dylan's face all over again, as I had in 1979, and I kept rewinding the DVD at this point, over and over, again and again... just to see that face, over and over, again and again.  Scorsese must have felt what I felt upon seeing Warhol's footage, because No Direction Home is not really a statement on what Bob Dylan was, or what he represented.  Give a man with Martin Scorsese's eye a pile of Dylan footage from the early Sixties ("pile" is an affectionate term for incredible contributions from D.A. Pennebaker, Murray Lerner, Ken Jacobs, Jonas Mekas, and Warhol), and the result is a visual definition of Dylan suitable for Webster's.  Or the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Or Wikipedia.

 

A result eminently suitable for human beings.  You and I.  Yes folks, here is a man named Bob Dylan.  Right here.  Here he is!  Do you see him?  Can you see him?  Do you WANT to see him?  Okay then, can you HEAR HIM?  He is standing right here, that geeky-looking dude singing and playing the guitar and that crazy harmonica-contraption.  Take a look, for God's sake, man.  Lend an ear, if nothing else.  You gotta move past the voice, dude.  You have to move past the spectacle.  Move your auditory and visual centers PAST your preconceived, indoctrinated nonsense.  Look and listen to this man.  The truth will set you free:

 

 

There are way too many "good parts" in this movie to discuss properly here, but ignoring the events of the Newport Folk Festival of 1965 would be like spit-shining Scorsese's Italian shoes.  Trumpeted by numerous musical historians as perhaps Dylan's greatest "triumph" (check out Bob's T-shirt on the Highway 61 Revisited album), I never really understood why these moments in Rhode Island were so special -- even after reading about them numerous times -- until Scorsese finally showed them to me under his brilliant, searing light.

 

Maybe it's the tremendous irony (and hypocrisy) of the situation that appeals to a natural malcontent like me.  Maybe it's the fact that Dylan played the rebel better than James Dean or Marlon Brando could ever dream of doing.  Maybe it's 20-20 hindsight.  I'm not sure of anything anymore, after personally witnessing one of the greatest, most peace-loving artists who ever walked the Earth, being SHOUTED AT AND THREATENED by the same "folks" who called him "friend."  Or "son."  Or worst of all, "brother."  Why was Dylan being "protested" against in this manner?  Well, because he was playing protest songs at a protest gathering, that's why!

 

Introduced reluctantly by Peter Narrow... er, Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame (any Biblical references come to mind?) as having only "a limited time" to perform (Dylan was the headliner of the Newport "Folk" Festival, amazingly), after plugging in his electric amplifier for the very first time on stage (he had already "sold out" and "gone electric" in the studio months prior to this show), Robert Allen Zimmerman was quite literally forced off the stage by the loud, rude voices of just plain 'ole folks like you and me.  Gentle, good-hearted people.  Folk music lovers.  The peaceful ones.  Religious, spiritual beings.  The ones who quietly and plaintively celebrated their acoustic Woody Guthrie-inspired protest songs, all the while decrying the violence, noise, and "distortion" of the Vietnam War, which was in full swing at the time.  The violent, climactic peak of Scorsese's film occurs when Pete Seeger, a father-like figure of the folk rock scene in 1965, is observed (by several prominent backstage witnesses) to be brandishing an axe, with the intention of permanently shutting Dylan up by hacking the cables to his electric power supply.  Seeger, a strictly acoustic performer, mind you, perhaps seeing his own peaceful purpose (on Planet Protest) threatened by the Man from Minnesota, by some reports had to be physically restrained and removed from the vicinity.  I felt like I was standing in the crowd watching this atrocity:  the scene was lucid and surreal at the same time.

 

And honestly, I'm not sure how I would have reacted had I been there in Rhode Island myself.  Watching this film last night for the very first time, I wondered if I, too, would have shouted at my hero of heroes for "betraying" me.

 

Dylan, always the teacher supreme, or perhaps only a channel to the musical gods (or "a shaman, a column of air, so to speak, identical with his breath," as the peerless Allen Ginsberg described him in a beautiful interview), took the stage and ripped into a rousing, electric version of Maggie's Farm, flanked by a rock and roll band who, mere seconds later, must have felt like they had wandered (or been led?) into the wrong concert venue.  Into a den full of pot-smoking "lions."  The vicious mewling and catcalls of Dylan's former fans must have upset him greatly, although his intelligent face seemed to show mostly detached, and concerned, fascination.  Dylan himself, interviewed wonderfully in many segments of the film, claimed that he "had no idea" why they were booing.

 

 

Either undaunted, or merely to complete his financial obligation to frustrated "flower children," Dylan, standing alone in the mouth of this "hippie" beast, finished the 15-minute electric romp with his enduring masterpiece "Like a Rolling Stone."  At its completion, the stage goes dark,  and as he turns his guitar-slinger's, black-leathered back on the camera and begins walking off the stage in obvious dismay, we hear Dylan instructing his band quietly "Let's go, man, that's all."

 

What happened next can only be described as poetic genius.  There simply is no other way to express it.  Dylan was eventually cajoled back onto the Newport stage (by a sheepish-looking Peter Yarrow, among others:  "He's getting his axe.  He's comin'..."), whereupon He took up his acoustic guitar, and began to play "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."  I'd heard the lyrics to this song a thousand times before, over a period of my life spanning nearly 27 years, but in watching this film last night, I realized that I'd never really heard Bob's words at all.  Dylan's voice and inflection were unbelievably perfect and profound on the phrase below, even baring his teeth and enunciating (oh-so!) purposefully and even dutifully the following words in upper case:

 

"The highway is for GAMBLERS, better use your SENSE."

 

Bravo, Mr. Scorsese.