No Direction Home – Bob Dylan
(Documentary)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B
When it comes to his documentary work, Martin Scorsese is
as good there as he is with his dramatic work.
Italian American (1974) and American Boy (1978) are still
among his best works, little seen as they are.
The Last Waltz (1978, reviewed elsewhere on this site) shows a
love for Rock music and the counterculture more explicitly than his genius use
of such music in his films. For the
great PBS American Masters series, he has created No Direction Home,
an exceptional portrait of the great singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.
Scorsese focuses on the time of his birth to what was the
end of the 1960s for him as an active artist when a bad motorcycle accident had
him pull back from the spotlight and essentially out of actively being part of
the counterculture. This double DVD set
sees Dylan getting very personal about his childhood and recalling some very
intimate details about his beginnings and influences. This is more introspective than most people would or could be in
public, but is likely second-hand to a genius like Dylan.
The program is painstakingly detailed in its wealth of
music footage, rare clips and other key documents and pieces that only someone
with Scorsese’s talent would know how to get, come up with knowing, then know
how to weave together for ultimate impact.
We get the personal context, the political context, the effect and
influence of the music as art, the lives it touched and no stone is left
unturned. So much has been said and
shown about Dylan, yet here is Scorsese over 40 years after the events took
place, laying them out to bare in ways we would never see otherwise. No Direction Home is ultimately a
great cinematic document of one of the most music artists in history, all the
way to his all-too-early retreat after what was a near-death experience.
Because so much of the older footage is 1.33 X 1, Scorsese
decided to make the entire program that way and it is very effective as a result,
including in its editing by David Tedeschi.
The footage is various, from black and white and color film or the past,
to the new footage shot for the 207 minutes-long two-part program. The sound is here in Dolby Digital 5.1 and
2.0 Stereo with some Pro Logic surround in parts. The 5.1 fares a bit better, but the music really calls for DTS
that this disc sadly is missing.
Extras include a four-minutes-long promo spot for Positively
4th Street from 1965, eight full-length versions of performances
feature din the main program and four guest performances by name female singers
doing Dylan. Of the many Dylan discs on
the market, No Direction Home is as key as the key albums of his catalog
being issued recently in the Super Audio CD format. Don’t miss it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
