I generally find your comments useful and interesting. but I'm not with you on the Dylan movie. It is a boring re-hash of a subject that's been done to death by many previous writers. The added narration is really insulting to the audience, and de-values the whole project. The lead does a decent job of portraying Dylan, but although Dyla…
I generally find your comments useful and interesting. but I'm not with you on the Dylan movie. It is a boring re-hash of a subject that's been done to death by many previous writers. The added narration is really insulting to the audience, and de-values the whole project. The lead does a decent job of portraying Dylan, but although Dylan is hardly the world's greatest singer, he usually tends to at least sing, shall we say, something resembling the melodies of his songs. Baez and Dylan's early girl friend Suzy Rotolo are portrayed with all the depth of a toothpick. The few black musicians appear in the film, ersatz Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and Big Bill Morganfeld are portrayed more along the lines of minstrels, rather than musicians. Dylan goes to NY, sees Woody and presto he's in his own apartment writing genius level songs. Nothing appears in the films about Dave Van Ronk or his wife Terri Thal, who mentored and Thal's case even briefly managed Dylan. Dylan's contemporaries. and competitors, Phi Ochs, Le Chandler, Mike Porco at Folk City, and other Dylan helpers aren't in the film. Al Grossman, not a likeable character, is portrayed as sort of a dumb care-taker. There's plenty not to like about Al, but his shuttling Dylan's songs to Peter, Paul & Mary, also his clients, helped greatly to create the Dylan explosion. Pete Seeger was not a carbon cut-out noble person, but at his best an interesting and inventive musician, and, gasp, a hit songwriter. The version of Wimoweh in the film is truly awful. It makes The Tokens' recording seem like an expert rendition of African music. OK, it's art, and not fact, but why move the epic Lomax-Grossman fisticuffs from it's actual location, after the Bloomfield band set and turn it into a Dylan confrontation?
I generally find your comments useful and interesting. but I'm not with you on the Dylan movie. It is a boring re-hash of a subject that's been done to death by many previous writers. The added narration is really insulting to the audience, and de-values the whole project. The lead does a decent job of portraying Dylan, but although Dylan is hardly the world's greatest singer, he usually tends to at least sing, shall we say, something resembling the melodies of his songs. Baez and Dylan's early girl friend Suzy Rotolo are portrayed with all the depth of a toothpick. The few black musicians appear in the film, ersatz Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and Big Bill Morganfeld are portrayed more along the lines of minstrels, rather than musicians. Dylan goes to NY, sees Woody and presto he's in his own apartment writing genius level songs. Nothing appears in the films about Dave Van Ronk or his wife Terri Thal, who mentored and Thal's case even briefly managed Dylan. Dylan's contemporaries. and competitors, Phi Ochs, Le Chandler, Mike Porco at Folk City, and other Dylan helpers aren't in the film. Al Grossman, not a likeable character, is portrayed as sort of a dumb care-taker. There's plenty not to like about Al, but his shuttling Dylan's songs to Peter, Paul & Mary, also his clients, helped greatly to create the Dylan explosion. Pete Seeger was not a carbon cut-out noble person, but at his best an interesting and inventive musician, and, gasp, a hit songwriter. The version of Wimoweh in the film is truly awful. It makes The Tokens' recording seem like an expert rendition of African music. OK, it's art, and not fact, but why move the epic Lomax-Grossman fisticuffs from it's actual location, after the Bloomfield band set and turn it into a Dylan confrontation?