Re:The Scorsese "documentary" is full of lies... 4 Years, 11 Months ago
"Aladdin", yes, what a good comparison to a film purporting to be a documentary about a music tour that actually happened in 1975.
Ignoring that, Bob is actually very funny - though obviously reading from cue cards at times; his deadpan delivery is very similar to his radio show voice-overs. I suspect though that this will be absolutely baffling to anyone not already very familiar with the tour itself.
And despite its entertaining silliness (the KISS riff is quite funny though the whole Sharon Stone joke goes on and on) it does seem a shame that we won't actually get a film about what really happened - I'm always happy to learn more about the Rolling Thunder Revue, but this film doesn't help with that in any way.
Still, some great performances, a few of them previously unseen (only a few unfortunately).
Re:The Scorsese "documentary" is full of lies... 4 Years, 11 Months ago
It's not a documentary. The opening image clearly lets you know that you're not watching a factual presentation of events. Dylan and Scorsese made artistic choices in how they presented the material. They never claimed to be giving you a factual presentation of a historic event. The facts have been written down before, many times, and, as you say, most of the video has been seen before as well. Why not put the whole thing together in a way that's entertaining and thematically centered around ideas like deception, lies, trickery, and the unreliability of memory.
I found it mesmerizing. Yeah, I could have done without Sharon Stone, but if Bob wants to write her into his story, who am I to tell him not to? The past is nothing but ashes anyway. The music is what endures, and it's maybe the best music Bob Dylan ever made. If you don't like the movie, try the soundtrack. It's pretty decent.
Re:The Scorsese "documentary" is full of lies... 4 Years, 11 Months ago
zeppyfish says it all.
2 small additions: The Netflix publicitymachine has not used the word documentary. And the opening title is: CONJURING the Rolling Thunder Re-vue.
Re:The Scorsese "documentary" is full of lies... 4 Years, 11 Months ago
I wonder if we might ever get what I think we all really want - the live footage.
It's so good, the best of his life I reckon along with '66, and it always comes with other stuff.
First Renaldo and Clara (and more power to that - I'd love to see it again in good quality. I still remember sneaking out of school with a friend and a bottle of port and seeing its initial cinema run), now with this mockumentary. I get so disappointed when it cuts away from another great live performance to more made up nonsense. Yeah sure, it's an investigation of deception, lies, trickery, and the unreliability of memory. But it's not worth a single verse of Bob singing "Isis".
Just give us the GOOD STUFF - film of the concerts
Re:The Scorsese "documentary" is full of lies... 4 Years, 11 Months ago
Recently I read a news article about a big fire in a Hollywood warehouse complex. It was 20 years ago but they kept it quiet to avert damage claims because lots of mstertapes (audio and film) were lost. What if all of Howard Alk's concert footage was destroyed there as well? (Scorsese had to use off-master work-tapes).
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