Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019)
Dir. Martin Scorsese
“When somebody’s wearing a mask, he’s going to tell you the truth. When he’s not wearing a mask, it’s highly unlikely.”
Bob Dylan’s just casually dropping could-be best lines in a song of his, in a talking head interview.
While watching the live performances of Dylan running off the lines of his songs, you realize all the more just how incredibly dense his lyrics are. Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue performances are so raw and hard-hitting to the point where he may seem spontaneous at times, but the band is so tight that the whole show pulls together perfectly. I do not think that I blinked a single time while watching him perform “Isis”, which is one of the most amazing live performances I’ve ever seen. And I would not even know where to get started with “Hurricane”. Every song Dylan does for the crowd continually shows his prowess as not only a musician, but also a brutally honest voice as an awe-inspiring storyteller.
Part of what this documentary does best, as well as Scorsese’s other Dylan doc (but more so here), is that it doesn’t fall into a continuously praising, glorified piece on Dylan’s work, hailing him as a genius every thirty seconds. Instead, it puts all the mastery right in front of you, letting you feel immersed. And almost as important, this does a really great job of setting up the background of Dylan’s image as an artist, but being a more focused documentary than No Direction Home (which I still really like).
What I think is the very best part of Scorsese’s documentary, alongside it feeling so intimate, is that the 1975 Dylan footage seems mystical, as if he’s a completely different person than the now 81-year-old Dylan. Not to mention that Dylan literally says in this that he doesn’t remember a single thing about The Rolling Thunder Revue! It’s almost like a ghost story, or something, which is only enhanced by the darkly lit ambience surrounding him on stage.
This has become one of my favorite documentaries. Other than Get Back, I’ve never enjoyed a documentary this much, and I even feel like I want to rewatch it, which is a rarity for me with this genre. There’s also something extremely relaxing about watching music documentaries; when done well, at least—like this one—you feel like you’re a part of these groups of musicians, and are so comforted by their music.
6/13/22
