Scorsese's 'Rolling Thunder' Documentary Confirmed for 2019

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by CWillman, Jan 10, 2019.

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  1. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Billboard (or is it Cash Box?) mock-up at 00:26:41 in which everything is revealed...
     
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  2. dharma bum

    dharma bum Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    She's definitely within the correct context. There's a lot that the film doesn't mention about Bob and Patti, but he was pretty much blown away from the first time he saw her perform, to the point where he was obviously studying her moves (Check out his "Isis" performance). It's a pretty strange dynamic when one of your icons/heroes requests to meet you and is a big admirer of your work, but that's exactly the case with Bob and Patti. Anyway, we've gotten more from her over the years in terms of what was going on back then, but her history definitely intertwines with his during the 1975 pre-Rolling Thunder/pre-Horses period. Bob also played a huge role along with Michael Stipe in getting Patti to go back on the road in 1995 after her husband died a year earlier, but that's neither here nor there.
     
  3. Dayfold

    Dayfold Forum Resident

    Great interview, thanks.

    I'd been thinking that if there's one thing I take away from this brilliant documentary then it is that I'm a lot more credulous than I ever give myself credit for. But I feel much better about that now having read that even Ronee, who was actually there on the tour, was taken in by Dylan/Scorcese's mischief. :)

    From the interview:

    "Do you have any thoughts about the fictional elements in the movie? There’s Michael Murphy playing Senator Tanner, a la the Altman miniseries, which you know. And then the documentary filmmaker character…

    That’s fiction? Do you know Kevin Crossley? He was piano tech on the tour and played with Joan Baez’s set — brilliant pianist, fantastic guy. He and I went to see the film together, and we said to each other, “Did you ever meet this guy?” Well, see, that explains a lot right there. It completely fooled me and Kevin, so thank you for telling me, because we’ve been asking around. What else?"
     
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  4. posnera

    posnera Forum Resident

    This is way less "historic" than the 66 live footage which they did not completely release along with NDH. This may be all we get for now.
     
  5. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    100%. Guess I'm in the minority here but I find her stage presence electrifying and clearly so did Bob. I think he also liked that her act had lots of completely in-the-moment interaction between her and the other musicians onstage, something they definitely tried to go for with Rolling Thunder
     
  6. dharma bum

    dharma bum Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    She's one of the last artists that can be traced back to the Beats in that same line that Dylan belongs to. There are a few others of her own generation and after in that lineage, but none that have so effectively bridged the Beats with the avant-garde, and the hippie counterculture with punk while being revered in all four worlds. A very unique figure.
     
  7. Glass Candy

    Glass Candy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Greensboro
    Her scenes are highlights of the film.
     
  8. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Yeah, I think you are missing the context. And maybe that's a failing of the film. The context is the Greenwich Village literary and performing arts scene of the early '70s, which is the genesis of the RTR. Dylan came to the Village in the early '60s and as much as he shaped it, it shaped him, which is really something that come through clearly in the great early remembrances of Chronicles. Then, in '66 he basically retired to the country to raise a family, leaving the Village behind. Ten years later he returned and fell in both with what was left of the old folkie and boho crowd -- Ginsburg and Jack Eliot or whomever -- and the new: his new young band members, and the newer literary and musical performing lights of whom Patti Smith and Sam Sheppard obviously had major impacts on Dylan (only one, obviously, would accept the offer to join the RTR), and also who where kind of bridges between the '60 NY boho world of the Village and the Chelsea Hotel etc., and the new Village bohemia and were both children of Dylan, especially Smith, in the context of wedding the literary and rock and roll -- you need to remember Smith at the time was as much a part of the St. Mark's Poetry project scene and of course had co-written and co-performed a two person play with Shepard in 1971. She was a literary figure and a rock figure and a magnetic performer. (BTW, that tour Dylan and Smith did together after her husband died and SHE returned to action, was fabulous.)
     
  9. keef285

    keef285 Forum Resident

    Location:
    U.K.
    That Bob sure has a wicked sense of humour.......
     
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  10. hutlock

    hutlock Forever Breathing

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    Blown away by this film. Just amazing.
     
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  11. gottafeelin

    gottafeelin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Georgia
    You used to like Dylan, but things have changed.
     
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  12. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    I like Dylan. I don't like posts like yours'.
     
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  13. JABEE

    JABEE Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I was hoping there would be some shots of Phil Ochs even if they aren't something to remember him by.

    I feel it does go for an approach where it doesn't really give you an idea of why all these people are following around Dylan like the messiah.

    The footage is incredible and the scene with Joni Mitchell playing Coyote with I believe McGuinn and Dylan along with Lightfoot in the background was pretty awesome.
     
  14. JABEE

    JABEE Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I think it is a bit funny with the fictional elements.

    Hurricane as a song is a tall tale. It's fake, but it's made to get a message across.

    I remember reading Dylan's book where he talked about how all that matters in a folk song is that it's good and the story is good. The intricacies of Joe Hill, Sacco and Vanzetti, or John Henry.
     
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  15. Love the Spinal Tap moments, the limo driver and the graveyard visit...oh wait..this is before Tap... Interesting.
     
  16. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    I would not debate whether Patti Smith has roots in The Beats, but certainly would question calling her anywhere near "the last". I would say there are those yet to be born that may end up in "that same line"
     
  17. j.barleycorn

    j.barleycorn Forum Resident

    Location:
    MN, USA
    What I really loved about this film, and I saw Renaldo & Clara the week it came out and now it’s a big blur to me, was the live footage. That was the part of Renaldo that lingered as hazy imagery to me 40 years on.

    Bob was so theatrical in his performance. His eyes, his facial expressions, hand and body movements. It ( and this might be heretical in a Dylan discussion ) reminded me of Gabriel in Genesis live 72-74. He’s never done anything remotely like this since. And I don’t remember making that connection when I saw Renaldo. I don’t think Dylan was aping Gabriel. But it made that same impression on me. It was theater and he (they) were playing roles.

    Btw I really missed seeing the footage of It Ain’t Me Babe.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2019
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  18. VatiBobo

    VatiBobo A Scotsman in Canada

    The intensity of his performances is amazing to see. Mesmerising, can't look away performances. I can't help but laugh, though, at some of the side-eye/stinkeye looks he gives people during some of the songs - they are hilarious! There are a couple that he does during Hurricane, which appear to be in Scarlet's general direction (for no obvious reason other than for dramatic effect), which are absolutely priceless.
     
  19. chacha

    chacha Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    mill valley CA USA
    Had you seen It Ain’t Me before and it wasn’t used here?
     
  20. John Rhett Thomas

    John Rhett Thomas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Macon, GA, USA
    Interesting observation. Bob has always wanted to keep his audience at arms length, yet still wants to dazzle with performance and song. Subsuming himself in a Gabriel-like theatricality, down to the mannerisms and costumes, would seem to give him the opportunity to have both things.

    But it never, ever occurred to me until seeing that incredible footage of Bob consorting with Patti Smith, and then watching him perform "Isis" – in a version I've heard countless times on live tapes but never clicked until the documentary – but he was hugely influenced by Patti on that song and his overall vocal approach in Rolling Thunder. He took out all of the studio version's mild-mannered melodies and turned them into a full-throated poetry recitation a la Smith.
     
  21. adam_777

    adam_777 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Duncan BC, Canada
    There is footage of it in Renaldo and Clara
     
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  22. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    If you want to see something more profound than the Scorcese work, something filmed in 1975, try this.

    It is the man who was the true grandfather of the folk movement, old enough to have been Woody Guthrie's father, a man who Dylan himself acknowledged as an inspiration, someone who moved him very deeply.

    It is John Jacob Niles, being interviewed and singing two of his songs (intro and end) at age 84.

    Last week, I broadcast a 4 hour special on the early recordings of John Jacob Niles (those before WWII), most likely the longest radio broadcast of John Jacob Niles ever on the air.

    My mother told me that Niles was the most intense performer that she had ever seen (back in the years 1943-1945). And she had seen Dylan a few times too.

    Check this out. It is a one hour television program from 1975:

    John Jacob Niles | Distinguished Kentuckian

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2019
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  23. dharma bum

    dharma bum Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I didn't say she was "the last." I said one of the last. I also said there are others in her generation and beyond. True though... these hypothetical unborn artists will most likely exist, but they'll probably be few and far between...undoubtedly more so than they've been for the past 40 years. That direct line I mentioned pretty much ended over 20 years ago when the last major Beats died and our rock stars stopped hanging out with them. I think any future line will be slightly more twisted like a tree branch.
     
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  24. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    I seriously do not believe that an artist has to "hang out with" any other artist, or even be alive at the same time, to be inspired by them and create astounding works that, in part, are derived from or in a line from those sources of inspiration.
     
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  25. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    Here is another film of John Jacob Niles, made when he was 86 years old, a good 70 years after he started the folk music revolution.

    Though Dylan had opportunity, I am not sure he ever met John Jacob Niles. If he did, that must have been amazing.

    John Jacob Niles

    [​IMG]
     
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