For Dylan fans

[ilpostino]

Excerpt from Salon review:
Masked & Anonymous"
Directed by Larry Charles
Starring Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Jeff Bridges

"Masked & Anonymous" explores the Dylan legacy in some obvious ways, and in some not so obvious ones. The movie's soundtrack includes an extraordinary reading of "My Back Pages" in Japanese (performed by the Magokoro Brothers) and the equally astonishing "Come Una Pietra Scalciata" (that's "Like a Rolling Stone," rapped in Italian by Articolo 31). And the movie's killer moment comes when a little black girl (played by Tinashe Kachingwe, and she's marvelous), whose mother has taught her every Jack Fate song in existence, steps out to sing an a cappella "The Times They Are A-Changin'."

The obvious point is that Dylan's influence is a web that has been cast over the whole world. But the less obvious one is that even when Dylan sings one of his own songs, he sings it as a cover. It's never just a "version," but a reinvention -- he comes at it from the outside and works his way in, instead of the other way around. In "Masked & Anonymous," Dylan as Fate sings his own songs with his own band (a youthful and vigorous outfit consisting of Larry Campbell, Tony Garnier, George Racile and Charlie Sexton).

But the Dylan songs done by other people and the Dylan songs done by Dylan-as-Fate aren't copies and originals, respectively. They're a type of call-and-response -- a way of magnifying and expanding the material, whether the person singing is the guy who actually wrote the song or an enthusiastic bunch of Japanese musicians. When Dylan performs "Blowin' in the Wind" -- a song I always think I've heard far too many times, until I hear Dylan singing it, again -- he sings as if he's presenting us with something completely new, a little something he scribbled on the back of a matchbook on his way to the gig.

Is there a greater gift than that?

"Masked & Anonymous" is, inadvertently, about how much Dylan has given us. It is also, again inadvertently, about what we've taken away from him. The whole movie is one giant in-joke about Dylan's career and his destiny -- about the person he has become and is becoming, a person who grows increasingly mysterious to us, instead of more comprehensible.

[amazona]

1. have you seen it?

I'd love to get my hands on this...reviews are mixed but I'm determined to see it.

[ilpostino]

2. Read the script

And it didn't sound promising (I love Dylan, but 30 years later I still haven't put myself through Renaldo and Clara). But the reviews today are very encouraging...I mean just the chance to hear "Like a Rolling Stone" sung by an Italian rap group seems worth $9.50 to me.