Watch No Direction Home: Bob Dylan For Free

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

First of all I adore Bob Dylan and think he is the greatest songwriter of all time! Bob Dylan's simplicity is sheer perfection, nothing fake at all! Amazing his consistency to write great songs thru every decade. As well as I equally love his voice, his voice and music are the perfect marriage...all with no ego or a front as a star!However I did not like this film, it was boring as I was only interested in Bob Dylan and not the others sorry..I'm a focus person, so my focus is Bob Dylan and that's all I wanted to see. Yes I understand it's important to show one's influences but Scorsese failed to present it properly. Scorsese is a talented technical film maker but he lacks in the air and magic why he has been overlooked many times: ( However a couple of his films were perfect. He is so grand that the smallest imperfection shadows his grand talent... A bit of personal disappointment is that nearly every film maker and writer does not mention how Bob Dylan influenced Jimi Hendrix. This film mentions other's that covered his songs but no mention of Jimi Hendrix

I guess you could say I was there from the beginning; the generation Dylan supposedly 'spoke' for was mine, having grown up in the Sixties and Seventies smack in the middle of the Kennedy assassination, Viet Nam and man on the moon. Generally I like Dylan's music though I wouldn't necessarily call myself a fan. A good friend of mine can't stand him for his often whiny voice and unintelligible lyrics. I had captioning on while watching this documentary and for the first time since the song came out, I now know what he was saying in the opening lines of 'Like a Rollin' Stone'.The Bob Dylan of "No Direction Home" comes across as exceedingly complex and unassumingly simple at the same time. He's unable (or unwilling) to verbalize a coherent answer when questioned by interviewers and fans, although I did find it annoying when a confrontational fan at a press conference challenged him to provide the deeper meaning of a t-shirt he wore on an album cover. Another fan insisted on letting him know that his songs were 'supposed to' have a subtle message. Dylan's response to this kind of nonsense was noncommittal at best but you could tell he had enough of it.Which leads to the larger point of those who clamored for his presence at protest gatherings against the war and any myriad of other social issues. Dylan was just not into it. Spokesman for a generation - b.s. was his reaction. Which totally disappointed fellow folk singer Joan Baez who wanted urgently to do political stuff while Dylan wanted to do songs. If you were around at the time and didn't know any better, like myself, you would have believed that Dylan certainly was this voice of a new generation.The film is peppered with the insight and musings of many fellow travelers of the folk music world during Dylan's early career - Baez, Dave van Ronk, Maria Muldaur, Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield among others. But the most hilarious when he wasn't trying to be, was beat poet Allen Ginsberg attempting to describe how Dylan became a column of air and was one with his own breath. One gets the impression that if Dylan had heard that description of himself, he'd tell the guy he was full of hot air himself.Or then again, he'd say something like this - "Words have their own meaning, or they have different meanings and words change their meaning. Words that meant something ten years ago don't mean that now. They mean something else." That's Dylan speaking to Scorsese. If you had the time you might figure it out. Or you could listen to a Dylan album.

Like the singer's own movie,"Renaldo and Clara" ,"no direction home " is a very looong movie (210 min);there the comparison ends : you do not need the fast forward button here ;every minute of Scorcese 's movie is absorbing ;it might be the best movie dealing with rock ever made.Although it only covers Dylan's first years (it stops in 1966 with the motorcycle accident),it is so dense, so well-documented that it seems to depict an entire life;everyone says ,anyway,that those years were the best in Dylan' s career:there were great things afterwards ("blood on the tracks" ) but who could claim that his music was more ground-breaking than in the 1963-66 era?"North country blues" ,for instance ,is not heard ,but when Dylan talks about the miners in his hometown ,and he tells us about their plight and the fact that they did not think of rebellion ,it's impossible not to think of the heroine who "married John Thomas a miner".Although it's linear ,the movie includes scenes of the " rock" period even when Dylan is still a folk singer and has not yet made an album.this may puzzle people not familiar with Dylan's biography but are there any in the people who watch the film?Scorcese displays a sense of humor which Dylan possessed in those years :for instance "when the ship comes in" (Joan Baez had already told the anecdote in her "and a voice to sing with" autobiography ) was written because Dylan was denied a room in a hotel;it became an anthem in Washington with MLK!When we see Dylan playing in public (and there are plenty of live songs) we say to ourselves that all these versions are much superior to the studio recordings which sound often like demos :this is confirmed by the singer in the movie.When asked if he prefers to be acclaimed or booed (he is booed several times in the movie),Dylan hints at Billie Holiday's impressive "strange fruit" after which the audience was silent . A lot of people ,from Dylan's legend (with the exception of Maria Muldaur)play a big part in the movie:the women, Echo,Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez of course:I'm sure that many people will think that too much is given over to Baez but I personally think that her contribution is vital to the story.Early in the movie,Dylan said that she opened a world for him.Her new cover of "love is just a four-letter world' is moving.Also of great interest are Pete Seeger's ,Dave Van Ronk's ,Allen Ginsberg's and Mike Bloomfield's contributions.Much to my surprise ,an important musician such as Robbie Robertson is not interviewed whereas he's often on the screen.Minor quibble: the interaction between Dylan and the Beatles (and to a lesser degree with the other groups of the British invasions ) is almost passed over in silence .Dylan made history: the events depicted in parallel to his-story (Kennedy,MLK or the cold war when he was a teenager) are reflected in his works ,not only the protest song (the prophetic " a hard rain's gonna fall" and the universal "only a pawn in her game" ) but also in the "surrealist" ones ("desolation row")Bob Dylan was the greatest American songwriter of the twentieth century: he's got the movie he deserved.Like this ... try these .... None of these movies come close to " No direction come" though...."Renaldo and Clara" (1978) for fans only;the others should try the DVD which includes all the live performances ONLY."Hard Rain" (MTV 1976) unfairly overlooked ,this concert includes fine Dylan/Baez duets as well as a heavy metal "shelter from the storm" version."The concert for Bangla Desh" (Saul Swimmer 1972) 5 songs with Harrison,Starr and Leon Russel;youtube offers an outtake ,a Harrison /Dylan duet , "if not for you" ."Don't look back" (Pennbaker,1967;Scorcese 's movie includes many extracts of this excellent documentary)"The last waltz" (Scorcese 1978) made when the Band split;Dylan's songs include an exciting version of "baby let me follow you down" ."Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid " (Peckinpah 1973) Alias who? Best avoid.

Martin Scorsese is to be praised for the lavish detail he has provided of Dylan's early career, and for the impressive array of archive material that he has assembled.To see the influences on Dylan's music and his career was impressive. he managed to take the music and ideas of others and transform them into a unique style that forever changed the world of music.This is only about five years in his musical life, but it is so rich.It is also interesting to see how he was such a part of history, being up close at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech and actually playing.Wat to go, cuz!