The Importance of Being Idle

No Direction Home

Ugh, late night last night. Chatting wit' my girl till so late it was getting early, and then awoken this morning by the postman bringing what I hope will be the first of my birthday parcels/cards. Which was nice. I am however functioning on a minimal amount of sleep, and feel like I've just come round after having been kicked into unconciousness (although that may be because I've just finished reading the excellent Football Factory), so excuse me if this goes astray.
The other cool thing I did last night, was watch the first part of Martin Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home. Now this is about the early Dylan, about his early life right up until the moment he went electric in '66. It's been a fascinating documentary so far, containing an awful lot I didn't know, although I'm nothing like a Dylan expert, only an interested dabbler. Most interesting of all however are the contributions from the man himself, as obviously eloquent as you'd expect. And is he being disarmingly candid? No, I don't think so: I think everything he says is designed to appear candid and insightful, but actually when you get down to it, he doesn't really say anything, its all just charming fluff that makes you think what a top bloke he is, called by destiny to a greater purpose. Except, no. I think there's nobody more certain of Bob Dylans' undoubted talent than Robert Zimmerman himself, and whilst the humble act is clearly more appealing than someone who is sure of themselves to the point of arrogance, I still think it leaves him as much of a mystery as when we started. Which can only be a good thing. Anyhoo, the thing that REALLY shocked me about the movie is how rude the 'fans' were when he changed his musical direction, I mean they were really abusive and unpleasant, like they somehow had a right to the Bob Dylan they'd known before and that he himself had no right to change. Now I think why he changed was as much to do with sheer bloody mindedness as anything, he was becoming pigeon-holed as The Protest Singer, The Voice Of A Generation, and quite naturally that made him uncomfortable and he changed in as radical a direction as he could, in what looks like an almost deliberate attempt to alienate his established fans, so that he succeeded in doing so shouldn't really be a surprise. Still I dunno though, there's more of the movie to come tonight, so maybe I'll find out more then. Or maybe I'll just get more obfuscation and more of the Legend Of Bob Dylan...

posted by BadMonkey @ 10:24 AM