I think the thing I’m most surprised about with all the press this movie is getting is that neither the general audience nor the reviewers are talking about how dark this movie is. I mean, it’s really dark, and I’m not even talking about the parts related to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film, perhaps like any fairy tale, has its share of monsters and maidens, but the monster that seems to be wrestling with the most, shall we say, demons, is Bob himself. I think that’s what I found myself liking the most about this movie (I am going back and forth on whether it actually is a Hollywood movie or more cinema vérité) is that it doesn’t shy away from the fact that the main character is kind of an asshole as Joan Baez says to Bob in one scene. With all the countless songs he has written and the influential and sound-charging records he has made, silly me thinking that, at least, at times, the movie would celebrate his creativity, and yet instead, the creative process is rarely examined. Even during iconic scenes, like the recording of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the scene is given short shrift, and it’s a real shame when the actual facts that we know (gathered from Al Kooper, among others who were in the studio) are so interesting, and I believe would have been fascinating to watch play out on screen. I guess, like Dylan himself, you never know what you are going to get, as quite often what we may have expected is turned upside down or even inside out depending upon Bob’s whims. I walked out of the movie with such a strong sense of impending doom, and I haven’t been able to shake it. Perhaps this is what Bob Dylan himself feels, and if it is, I think I’m starting to better understand why he tries to stay hidden.
Charles Cicirella
12/28/2024
