No Direction Home (review)

As a documentarian of the counter-culture, Martin Scorsese has impeccable credentials. He is vocal in his abiding experiential connection to those of his generation, of whom Bob Dylan, the subject of his epic documentary No Direction Home, is certainly a contemporary. Characteristic to much of his directorial work, Scorsese is irresistibly flashing forward, seeking out the science fiction of a medium, while simultaneously maintaining grounding in an era's ethos. His documentary biopic of Dylan is an attempt to capture his subject's prescience, while simultaneously grounding him solidly in the recollections of an era.

No stranger to documenting the world of music, Scorsese edited the landmark musical mission statement of a generation which was Woodstock (1970), as well as producing and directing The Blues (2003). The thoroughness and well-rounded perspectives he brought to The Blues are echoed in his inclusion of varied talking heads in No Direction Home. Joan Baez makes what might be judged a perfunctory appearance as Dylan's muse, yet the clear scope of recollections gained from Beat maestro Allen Ginsberg are bracing, particularly given that he in fact passed on before the millennium. In particular, his emotional recollection of the moment in which he realized he had been supplanted as unofficial poet laureate by the "folkie" Dylan is a scene of genuine cultural profundity. Scorsese acknowledges the business of self-promotion behind any success, not only through Dylan's own admissions, but also the observations of various managers, promoters and doyens of the folk scene. Dylan himself, in interviews specifically recorded for the film, is candid, lucid, yet certainly more wary than the caricature of youthful brilliance he presented to D.A. Pennebaker in Don't Look Back (1967).

Indeed, while Scorsese maintains a tight, understated connection to the nuances of time, achievement, and a fading sense of mission in the older Dylan, at times he appears to waver in his depictions of the wild young man. Humor is readily apparent in every dry one-liner he cracks out of the voluminous footage of 1960s Dylan. Yet referentially, Scorsese seems over-dependent on the found footage. Other critics have noted how much of Pennebaker's film is used in the film's second half. I would tend to agree. If the footage is meant to capture the varied moods of the young man, surely Scorsese, a director so celebrated for his editorial collaborations, could have chosen a few more choice moments from the film, whose ethos seems so at odds with that of the autumnal No Direction Home.

No Direction Home catalogues Dylan's career from its early rumblings to his fateful decision to go electric. True to his training, Scorsese inventively cuts from chronologically ordered recollections on the part of Dylan and his peers to early electric performances and his audience's first responses. Here again Scorsese might be accused of overstatement. The sight of one earnest fan after another trashing the new Dylan stands in stark contrast to the variations of blues commentary one might find in the titular series, or the singular, powerful mission statement found in an interview with an ordinary young couple in Woodstock. In embracing the scope of the epic documentary, Scorsese has announced his presence with the loudness Pauline Kael noted in his direction of Raging Bull (1980). Rather than allowing a story to be told, he could not resist the urge to illustrate to the audience his presence as the director, the assembler of the narrative. As such his re-visitation of an era is redolent of Scorsese's improvisational moments, and the directorial fondness he is noted for in his overt referentiality, and dependence on reverent homage.