DVD Review: No Direction Home

I had planned an epic examination of the Martin Scorsese's nearly epic Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home which airs on American Masters on PBS Monday and Tuesday (sept. 27 & 28 with repeats on many stations), but spent the weekend immersed in Webzine 2005 (and a few other events). The documentary is also being shown on the BBC on Monday and they are doing a bunch of Dylan programs on TV and radio. There are lots of Dylan links at Expecting Rain.

So some some quick notes and observations:

• I saw the doc on a big screen at a free preview Roxie in San Francisco. I wish there had
  been a theatrical release prior to the TV/DVD release. It an even better
  sonic and visual experience in a movie theater with an audience (so
  at least try and gather as many people together tonight and tomorrow to watch it).

  And even though it is even longer than Hoop Dreams, I think it works even better as a whole than it would over two nights. Plus, Scorsese might have finally gotten a long overdue Oscar (maybe he'll win an Emmy).

• Scorsese includes extensive excerpts from other documentaries. Hopefully, people will seek out Don't Look Back and Festival (which will be out on DVD on October 18th) as well as Scorsese's own The Last Waltz. Also books like Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads by Greil Marcus which focuses on the recording of a single song (a song which opens and closes the Scorsese documentary).
• They could have put together another soundtrack of music in the film which influenced Dylan. Odetta, who is one of those influences, is interviewed. Dylan describes listening to her for the first time in Chronicles: "What I was looking for were folk music records and the first one I saw was Odetta on the Tradition label. I went into the listening booth to hear it. Odetta was great. I had never heard of her until then. She was a deep singer, powerful strumming and a hammering-on style of playing. I learned almost every song off the record right then and there, even borrowing the hammering-on style." (the hammering-on style is demonstrated in the film).

  

• Soon after I bought the soundtrack, I saw Diamond Dave Whittaker. Two of the songs, I was Young When I Left Home and Dink's Song, were recorded in his apartment in December, 1961 on his couch. The bootleg is known as the Minnesota Hotel Tape. I played them for him on my ipod( More photos. He said listening to it could remember seeing Dylan playing them like it was yesterday, not nearly 44 years ago. He is mentioned in the Chronicles passage at the end of this post.
• The DVD includes seven complete Dylan performances which are excerpted in the film. There is also an index on each DVD of partial performances as well as the traditional chapters. And not mentioned on the box or insert are performances of Dylan songs (shot during the interviews) by Mavis Staples, Liam Clancey, Joan Baez, and Maria Muldaur. Clancey is one of the most interesting people interviewed. It would have been good if there was more on the DVD about the making of the documentary, perhaps even a commentary from Scorsese (though there will be an interview on the American Masters site.
• Fuck is said a few times during the documentary. A bleeped and uncensored version are being offered to PBS stations. Hopefully your station will air the latter. Though I wonder what they'll do for the one instance where fucking is in subtitles in the bleeped version.
• The documentary explores the initial impact of Woody Guthrie on Dylan. Again from Chronicles (I'll close with this - the full chapter is on the American Masters website):
  

  The other collection was the one that Flo had told me about-a Woody Guthrie set of about twelve double sided 78 records. I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned-didn't know if I was stoned or straight. What I heard was Woody singing a whole lot of his own compositions all by himself . . . songs like "Ludlow Massacre," "1913 Massacre," "Jesus Christ," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Hard Travelin'," "Jackhammer John," "Grand Coulee Dam," "Pastures of Plenty," "Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues," "This Land Is Your Land."

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Article Author: Steve Rhodes

Steve Rhodes is a journalist and photographer in San Francisco.

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