Bob's Fate | Bob Dylan & Masked & Anonymous - Page 2

This seedy quality inherent in the film that is the backdrop is there to support Dylan/Jack Fate and all of the other character’s disillusionment and to illustrate that the things they tell us of their, that is to say our, world has or is going to shit. As fellow train-rider with Jack Giovanni Ribisi says “the rebels have infiltrated everything.” There is corruption, disease, and decay. There is some sort of fascist dictatorship, we are to see, and who better to play that role than Daddy himself, as I said earlier. Hey, isn’t that who daddy is to all little kids at some or other stage, especially boys? Isn’t there that whole Oedipal thing about killing Daddy and so on that we cannot discount. Is it heavy handedness in this film or is it just there for us to note. Perhaps for some of us, maybe even for Dylan, Daddy really was a sort of fascist and so remains one. Whatever the case, for Dylan, Dad, here anyway, is the head honcho that has guided the whole country and its people up ole shit river.

And now, the plot inside the plot or the setting; (however you like) The two rather seedy promoters (John Goodman and Jessica Lange) need a star for their benefit show. Apparently, they’re stuck and the last person they think of, or so we’re lead to believe by Jack Fate (Dylan, of course, though in real life Dylan, like anybody, can be and is remarkably insecure for someone of his stature - Christ, I can hear him now, “What is sheeee talkin’ ‘bout maaaan, my ‘sttaaaturreee…..?’) There’s just the one hitch; Jack Fate is in prison. Somehow, they get him instantly released (yes, it doesn’t make sense and the government is so corrupt that it seems unlikely they would just release ole Jack, but hey… suspend your disbelief as you would for any, a –hem, good fiction so you can bloody well do it for Bob Dylan’s film because it’s fun, after all, and worth it just to see the performance of that Dylan gives in his little Western outfits, very Conway Twitty cum Hank Williams – I rather like the silly cowboy get up. It makes sense to me that a man such as Dylan would romanticize cowboys and the Wild Wild West (does Hibbing< Minnesota count as the wild wild west? Did it ever? That’s where Dylan is from….)

Article Author: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti is a published writer in both the United States and Europe. She is widely known for her music commentary, particularly her writings about Bob Dylan about whom she runs a highly-trafficked site. …

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