Bob Dylan Photo

Bob Dylan: No Direction Home

Starring: Bob Dylan

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

RS: 4of 4 Stars

2005 Documentary

Martin Scorsese's new, nearly four-hour Bob Dylan bio-doc melds electrifying archival films and recordings, pertinent historical footage and current interviews with many of the primary players, including the artist himself. "It was so cold you couldn't be bad," Dylan says of his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Yet the atomic fear and rock & roll of his boyhood forged a true American rebel. During his meteoric rise in the folk field, we see Dylan play on the same podium as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the same day King gave his "I have a dream" speech. "To this day it still affects me in a profound way," Dylan says. With its wealth of live footage from 1963-'66, this portrait of the artist is acute: He repeatedly charged into crucial performance crucibles, played outrageous music and left people in an uproar. Of his seismic performances with the Band, he says, "We put our heads in the lion's mouth." Certainly, as Dylan moves from acoustic troubadour to electric surrealist, both black-and-white film and the world itself explode into color, illuminating his vehement rejection of the folk protest movement and his relentless pursuit of rock & roll fire. Highly inspiring.