Bob's Fate | Bob Dylan & Masked & Anonymous - Page 5

Jack Fate tells us, I may as well make a list here, since that perhaps tell us what we need to know in some ways – these are spoken through Jack or through other characters in the film, but really, every character, like in a dream, is Jack Fate. Remember learning that ages ago? That to interpret a dream, you must first understand that you are every character in that dream, not just one. Once you understand this, you can then begin to understand the dream and there is a lot of talk about dreams and dream imagery in this film, so it makes sense that Jack Fate is, essentially, everyman, and everyman is also you, the viewer:
:
Expect the worst and you’ll get it.
All of us are trying to kill time … time ends up killing us. (which he thinks as a young girl offers an absolutely gorgeous rendition of “The Times They are a Changin’” in perfect pitch even though she cannot be more than eight or nine years old.)
Hospitals are shrines to the diseases they create.
A crack in the mud at the bottom of a dry sanded lake is more beautiful than a human being.

Read through, and you could create a small, compact volume of Jack Fate’s Gripes and Comforts. More, remember that many of the other characters are really Dylan/Jack Fate speaking as well – they may be playing other roles, but they serve as conduits to say what Dylan wants, like Giovanni Ribisi’ s train comments about having only “one tool” which is obviously not the right one and is the simple answer of annihilation and murder. Even the hotel keeper, (recognizable from many other films, though the name evades me right now ~ ), when asked about politics by Jack responds, “I ain’t no member of any political party…I guess that makes me a feminist.”

This film is, or rather provides, a venue or a way for Dylan to say all those things he has always wanted to say. To point out the inaccuracies and absurdities or big government and big business, the corruption of men, the evil forces; the “they” of the film, that are referred to again and again (though they could encompass a whole number of people or industries, so let’s just assume it means all. It is “Them.” it is “They” “They” are the perpetrators whatever the crime, and They always will be. It was Them officer, I saw it.

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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