After all, he's just an aging Robert Zimmerman awash in a sea of iconic Bob Dylan's.
And really, anything he has to say, he lets others say it for him.
Interestingly, Jack Fate never actually performs any Pre-M&A Dylan compositions, playing mostly a mix of traditionals and the odd new number. The film is built on the words of those earlier recordings, though. At one point a young girl is brought up to Fate, a girl aged about 5 years old, who has learned the words to every one of the great mans songs.
"Why'd she do that?" asks Dylan.
"Because I made her", answers her mother.
The child begins a beautiful rendition of The Times They Are A-Changing.
This Dylan rebirth is all well and good, but all these kids are ever gonna know is those great, classic, seminal songs what Dylan wrote in 1963.
Changing the times may very well be, but as far as the career of this particular artiste is concerned, folks would often prefer the times changing back, as Bob Roberts so memorably stated.
Time Out Of what, now?
Despite the obviously alien America in which the narrative unfolds, it isn't explicitly apparent just when this all happens. One might presume it to be one of those Sometime In The Future... deals, but if so, it must be like, next week. Folks still talk about Hendrix at Woodstock, about The Grateful Dead. At one point Penelope Cruz prays as she wears a Master Of Puppets t-shirt.
I'm gonna go ahead and offer my own bout of the old interpretation right here, and suggest that this isn't the future at all, but is in fact now. This fallen America, this wilderness of corruption and political deviancy is in fact how Dylan sees his home now. The big reference point for virtually every character seems to be Woodstock. After that, it seems nothing happened that was worth anything. All those bright, shining ideals, they all festered, turned sour and rancid, and left us with this.
Jack Fate is like a post-Room 101 Winston from George Orwell's 1984. He is granted access back into this insidious terrain, but no longer poses any threat to it. He observes it all with a kind of pained resign, but has nothing to say. The revolutionaries are all still there, but he is no longer personally fit to be part of them. He has to work on sorting himself, before he can offer any hope to anyone else.
It's a fucking amazing film is what The Duke thinks about it. I devoured every scene, laughed at every backhanded remark paid either implicitly or explicitly to almost every major figure ever involved in the star's existence. Larry Charles direction is pleasingly idiosyncratic, creating a fittingly timeless aura stained with grit and dust, with help from cinematographer Rogier Stoffers, who at times utilises the same exaggerated colour palette that Alfonso Arau played with in Picking Up The Pieces.
Article comments
1 - Chris Kent
Excellent work El Sunor Duke on a film shreaded by the critics. Some fascinating observations on the Dylan mystique. When reading the reviews of this film, was reminded of an old Alex Cox flick Straight To Hell, which was equally loved by film connoisseurs. I believe Joe Strummer and even The Pogues made appearances in the one long hip in-joke. I actually loved it, and perhaps the folks just didn't get it?
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Chris, im sorry for the delay in my reply. Something odd happened when Blogcritics shifted, and AOL was sending all my comment notifications into the SPAM folder for some reason!
Glad to hear someone else yack with praise regarding Straight To Hell. Being a somewhat obsessive fan of Shane MacGowan, frontman with The Pogues, i had to see it, of course, and was really pleasantly suprised. Even if Shane and the boys hadn't been it, i think i would still have loved it. And yes, i too was reminded on it throughout M&A.
Thank you for the kind words, friend, and again, sorry for the delay.