About Martin Scorsese
You can feel Martin Scorsese's bottomless skill and precise manipulation of the language form of film.
It starts with the bicentennial celebration of the United States, followed by Nixon’s TV speech, and then switches to Dylan’s interview. Then switch between "Mr Tambourine Man" and the bicentennial celebration parade. When Bob sang "Into my own parade", the screen switched to the celebration parade. Then, the poet Alan Ginsberg who participated in the tour said: "In the summer of 1975, New York had a strange sight, which was unusual. Has the so-called folk song era passed or not? Then there were rumors. People said Dylan is back, and his forces are all gathered together..." In his narration, Dylan and Jon boarded the stage and began to sing.
Can I imagine a better start than this? It's like the beginning of Dylan's countless narrative songs, I can't imagine it. This is why I love Martin Scorsese. He approaches the perfect film structure, his precise manipulation of the film rhythm. His movies made me feel that he was building palaces and temples, just like Michelangelo carved the vault of the Sistine court. And there are only two directors who make me feel this strong: Martin Scorsese and Kubrick.
But linking this tour with The Spirt seems to me to be a superfluous artistic action.
It is true that with this method, a sense of the times is blown across the face.
About Bob Dylan
I noticed a word in this movie—beautiful.
Allen Ginsberg said: "This is an idea in Bob's mind... He wants to show his beauty, he wants to show our beauty, to show the beauty of a special group performance."
There is a clip in the movie. When Bob Dylan exits, the audience in the back row says: "Bob, you are so beautiful."
Nearly all of Dylan's films are trying to explore a question: what exactly is Bob Dylan?
Rolling Thunder tour 1975-1976. During this period, the United States was 200 years old and Dylan was 35 years old.
In the previous years, Dylan's car accident in 1966 was a major turning point. Before the car accident, he released the album "Blonde On Blonde". Let's move a little further, he and Sarah married in 1965. In Dylan’s own words: "I married the woman I love."
The next album will take place before the Rolling Thunder tour nearly 10 years later. "Blood On The Tracks" was released in early 1975. Dylan’s son, Jack Bu, said: “It was my parents who were talking about the Buddha, and it was covered with scars.”
Blonde and Blood, Dylan manipulates vocabulary very cleverly. Although he has never admitted the connection between "Blood On The Tracks" and his married life, there seems to be no room for excuse. Blonde and Blood, in my opinion, are two sides of Dylan.
In January 1976, before the second Rolling Thunder tour, Dylan released "Desire", and the end of the album ended with a "Sara". It is worth mentioning that in the Rolling Thunder tour, almost all the songs have been re-arranged, but this "Sara" has kept the appearance of the album.
The three albums "Blonde On Blonde", "Blood On The Tracks" and "Desire", even though there is a ten-year interval between the first and second albums, I still say that they are regarded as trilogy, as Dylan as The changes in a very, very important life stage of the individual. Blonde is light and elegant, Blood is hysterical, and Desire is a neutralization and concession to the above two stages.
Let's go back to the stage of Rolling Thunder tour, Dylan disguised himself as a clown, wizard, and ghoul. When he got old many years later, he said: "We wear masks...because people only speak the truth when they wear masks." Don't capture his meaning literally.
In the performance on the stage, Dylan entered a circus-like, theatrical performance, and the existence of the Buddha appeared at this moment through his singing. Before he sang, he did not exist as an individual. After he sang, he did not exist as an individual. He is his vocal, he creates himself with performance.
At the same time, I can clearly feel the fickleness, anger and gloom of Dylan on the stage, as well as the arrangement of the Buddha to cater to his emotions. But at the same time, he is no longer a young man. He is 35 years old, has a wife and 4 children who have been with him for 10 years.
Dylan at this time is very beautiful in my eyes. Dylan before 1965 was a meteorite that crossed the sky tearing era. But after 1965, especially during Rolling Thunder's tour, he was a flesh-and-blood individual, no longer a symbol or a metaphor. Although there is no lack of social concerns such as "hurricane" and "The lonesome Death" at this stage, compared with "The Times They Are A-Changin'", "Blowing In The Wind" and "The Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" Waiting for the songs, these two songs are more like the individual's visual attention to the society.
At this stage, he still holds a huge uninterrupted talent. As an individual, he began to converge, driving the steam engine ship to the deeper and deeper waters. At the same time, he takes the stance of a man to endure loneliness, pain, and his gloom (his gloom is also upright).
It is precisely this kind of him, at 35 years old (a little earlier is too young and vigorous, and a little later, I am afraid that he will become dull and aging), and he embarked on the road to tour.
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