No Direction Home: Bob DylanMartin Scorcese’s display of Bob Dylan up through 1966 documents one of the most inspiring, tumultuous, and controversial periods of creativity in modern music. It begins with his life in Minnesota, moves through his early days in Greenwich Village with Allen Ginsberg, and into his mythical meeting with Woodie Guthrie. Throughout this part of the film, Scorcese enlightens us as much about the history of American folk and blues music as he does about Dylan. We are eventually shown his rise as an artist, a reluctant spokesperson for a generation, and eventually a pop icon. Interviews with Ginsberg, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger provide a more personal insight into Dylan’s complex nature and set the groundwork for understanding a man who would eventually reinvent himself and his music a number of times throughout his career. By the time of the now infamous Newport Folk Festival during which Dylan launched his new electric brand of folk music, we have seen Dylan as a creative artist who was more interested in pushing boundaries and denying definitions than someone interested in travelling down a path which would make people happy and make himself rich and famous. Through the interviews, press conferences, candid moments with his band, and interactions with fans, it became obviously apparent how much the controversy over his electric music was affecting him. He became stand-offish, sarcastic, and reluctant - not at all the up beat and generous person he appeared as in the beginning of the documentary. It is during this time that Dylan utters his now infamous phrase: “Get a new Bob Dylan and see how long he lasts”. At this point, Dylan withdraws from playing publicly and his music takes a downward turn, become less vibrant and less consistently remarkable. By the end, though, instead of seeing Dylan as a bitter rock star who dislikes the spotlight, Scorcese has us feeling sympathetic for him because his idealism had become so tarnished by the music industry, the media, and, the final straw, his very own fans who, during the first half of his shows - the acoustic set - would cheer, but during the electric part would boo. What we ultimately see in Dylan is a superstar upon whom fame and expectations are thrust and someone who, despite all of his denials that he does not care what people think of him or his music, is ultimately crushed by the negative receptions he received. Ironically, the music that caused this is now seen as the strongest music that he, or anyone else in history, has ever produced - Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde. Dylan’s withdrawal ended what was possibly the greatest four year ruin in music, producing seven classic albums and enough great songs to secure Dylan’s legend.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

Martin Scorcese’s display of Bob Dylan up through 1966 documents one of the most inspiring, tumultuous, and controversial periods of creativity in modern music. It begins with his life in Minnesota, moves through his early days in Greenwich Village with Allen Ginsberg, and into his mythical meeting with Woodie Guthrie. Throughout this part of the film, Scorcese enlightens us as much about the history of American folk and blues music as he does about Dylan.

We are eventually shown his rise as an artist, a reluctant spokesperson for a generation, and eventually a pop icon. Interviews with Ginsberg, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger provide a more personal insight into Dylan’s complex nature and set the groundwork for understanding a man who would eventually reinvent himself and his music a number of times throughout his career.

By the time of the now infamous Newport Folk Festival during which Dylan launched his new electric brand of folk music, we have seen Dylan as a creative artist who was more interested in pushing boundaries and denying definitions than someone interested in travelling down a path which would make people happy and make himself rich and famous.

Through the interviews, press conferences, candid moments with his band, and interactions with fans, it became obviously apparent how much the controversy over his electric music was affecting him. He became stand-offish, sarcastic, and reluctant - not at all the up beat and generous person he appeared as in the beginning of the documentary. It is during this time that Dylan utters his now infamous phrase: “Get a new Bob Dylan and see how long he lasts”. At this point, Dylan withdraws from playing publicly and his music takes a downward turn, become less vibrant and less consistently remarkable.

By the end, though, instead of seeing Dylan as a bitter rock star who dislikes the spotlight, Scorcese has us feeling sympathetic for him because his idealism had become so tarnished by the music industry, the media, and, the final straw, his very own fans who, during the first half of his shows - the acoustic set - would cheer, but during the electric part would boo. What we ultimately see in Dylan is a superstar upon whom fame and expectations are thrust and someone who, despite all of his denials that he does not care what people think of him or his music, is ultimately crushed by the negative receptions he received. Ironically, the music that caused this is now seen as the strongest music that he, or anyone else in history, has ever produced - Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde. Dylan’s withdrawal ended what was possibly the greatest four year ruin in music, producing seven classic albums and enough great songs to secure Dylan’s legend.

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“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” by The Rolling Stones

(Words/Music: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Album: Sticky Fingers, Atlantic Records 1971)

Thirty-nine years ago today, the Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers, an album which lives in the decadent world torn between “silk upholstered chairs” and “clean white sheets stained red,” which is filled with demons, drug addictions, and a sundry of implements of self-destruction, and is populated by “graceless [ladies],” “Sister Morphine,” and “the queen of the underground.” Fittingly, the album cover was designed by Andy Warhol, famous for surrounding himself with a mix of otherworldly characters in “satin shoes” and “fancy boots” who had “cocaine eyes” and “speed freak jive.” The album continued the decidedly darker and bleaker turn begun on Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed as evidenced in the slow and somber Jagger/Richards compositions like “Wild Horses” and “Dead Flowers” and the decision to include the Marianne Faithfull song “Sister Morphine” which members of the band backed her on previously.  Still present were the “traditional” Stones rock grooves like “Brown Sugar” and “Bitch,” but even they had taken a more sinister turn: the first being about various sexual taboos and the latter drawing parallels between the helplessness of drug/alcohol addiction and the lures of sex.

“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” starts off with one of the most recognizable blues/rock riffs and jams until it begins a long, trippy decent into the dark world of drug addiction. The song has become so associated with drugs and decadence that it has played significant roles in two major films: Martin Scorcese used it in Casino and Ted Demme used it in Blow, both cautionary tales about the dangers of the world of crime. With its somewhat ambiguous lyrics, it is hard to pinpoint the actual meaning of the song, but a few theories seem possible: it could be a lover returned to find his woman immersed in a world of drugs; the narrator could be the personification of an addiction returning to reclaim a recovering addict; or it could be an addict looking for support from a lover who is worse off than he is. No matter the interpretation, the song reeks of desperation and the loss of faith, which may have been on Jagger’s mind since he had recently split with Marianne Faithfull, and mentioned that “Faith had been broken” in “Wild Horses,” one of the songs inspired by her on the album. When all is said and done, this “faithless” album begs that they can still “do some living/after we die” and closes with the narrator still on his way to his destination, “just a midnight mile down the road.” Unknown is the actual destination: death or redemption, forgiveness or a deeper layer of depravity? Thirty-nine years later, it appears as a point in the career of the Rolling Stones that could have gone either way - The Doors/Jimi Hendrix/Janis Joplin route or the route of one of the greatest and most enduring rock bands in history. 

More Rolling Stones: AmazonMP3 – lala – last.fm

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“Brian Wilson” by Barenaked Ladies

(Words/Music: Steven Page, Album: Gordon, Reprise Records 1992)

It is not unusual for creative people to buckle under the pressure of the expectations upon their gift. Some would even suggest that the very nature of their ability to be creative makes them more prone to either mental illness or at least a difficulty in fitting in as a well-adjusted members of society. Seems they are too often the round peg in the square hole. Some artists cope by turning to drugs and alcohol and other escape mechanisms; some merely escape. The passing of J. D. Salinger yesterday caused many of us to reflect upon The Catcher in the Rye and re-ask the question whether he was actually Holden Caulfield who needed the “time-out” in the mental-health facility. The question many have pondered was what he was escaping from? Success? An inability to write? Was he afraid of producing more Holden Caulfields? Of revealing too much of himself? Depending upon what is found in his home with him, we may eventually get some of those answers. For me, the odd part about his death was that I found out about it on Twitter while I was watching Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator, an homage to the reclusive and misunderstood genius movie-maker, aerospace innovator, and celebrity Howard Hughes. It seemed only natural that I complete the recluse trifecta with the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and the Barenaked Ladies’ tribute to him.

More than my favorite song by this quirky band, it begins to explore the nature of the artist and the toll the creative process takes upon him/her. Steven Page, however, does more than Scorcese does with Howard Hughes; he doesn’t just tell the story, he personalizes it. He begins to wonder about his own abilities as an artist and obsessive desires like going downtown to buy records when he can’t sleep. He furthers this by projecting forward in a dream to envision himself as a new reclusive Brian Wilson. It begs to wonder how many of our normal routines or coping strategies might be deemed borderline unhealthy, and whether they might progress to the point of obsession. While Wilson’s strategies of coping with the stress of following up the legendary achievement Pet Sounds differ from Salinger’s reclusion after The Cather in the Rye, one cannot help but wonder whether these two creative geniuses share some basic proclivity toward reclusion and whether it is inherently and ironically tied to their ability to produce works for the masses. As more and more celebrities find their way into trouble, maybe taking a break from the lifestyle isn’t such a bad strategy after all: as long as it’s part of a healthy decision and doesn’t replace the lifestyle itself. Steven Page appears to have kept the challenges of an artistic existence in check as he has continued producing interesting and challenging music with the Ladies and, as of last year, as a solo artist.

More Barenaked Ladies: AmazonMP3 – lala – last.fm

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Easy Rider

Director: Dennis Hopper

Screenplay: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern

Video created using stills from http://screenmusinags.org/index.html

In my discussions with people about movies, I have found that most people who know movies know Easy Rider, but either haven’t seen it or have seen it “so long ago” that they don’t remember much more than basic plot (it’s about guys on motorcycles). This iconic movie, which has become part of Americana and is one of the most influential American films (other than Citizen Kane, I can’t think of a film more influential on current cinema), seems to have entered the collective American consciousness, but continues to remain outside of the mainstream. 

Starring Peter Fonda (Ulee’s Gold, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry) and Dennis Hopper (Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet) as two drug dealing bikers in the late 60s who travel from a drug deal with a Mexican in a junkyard to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the film documents the contrast between the bleakness and beauty of southwestern US and Texas. The structure of the film is that of a road movie, which simply means that Wyatt “Captain America” (Fonda) and Billy the Kid (Hopper) travel from town to town meeting people and learning not only about America but the nature of mankind. Unfortunately, what they learn is that both the country and its citizens are conflicted between “peace, love, and happiness” and bigotry, hypocrisy, and narrow-mindedness. A common theme in road movies (and novels – see The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), the search they embark upon is the search for the real America and they have found it. And they don’t like it.

Wyatt, referred to as Captain America, wears black leather pants and a black leather jacket with an American flag patch on it while he rides a motorcycle painted with an American flag gas tank. He is quiet and contemplative (unlike the hyperactive Billy) and offers the film’s most controversial and discussed line. At the final campfire scene, he tells Billy “we blew it”. Fonda, when making this movie, was adamant that that was all he wanted to say at that point and wants it to be open for interpretation. Who is the “we” and what is the “it”? Many suppose he was fed up with Hopper at that point and was talking about the film itself. Others have suggested that he is talking about their trip: going for the one big score and retiring is not in keeping with the Puritanical work ethic upon which this country was founded and built. My theory is similar to the latter, but I prefer to think that their “pursuit of happiness” is materialistic (as is much of America’s) rather than spiritual (like the commune they visit) or simply a quest for personal improvement. They search for freedom, but the means by which they attempted to gain that freedom is flawed, and they are doomed to never find it. It can even be extrapolated into the development of the nation as a whole. Because so much of the country is flawed, one can assume the plan of America is not working. In this case, the “we” is the country itself and the “it” becomes the design of America by the founding fathers. 

This pessimistic view of America quite possibly parallels their views on the film industry at the time. Easy Rider ushered in a new era in filmmaking. In decline was the studio mentality that everything needed to be filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood. Because cameras were becoming smaller cheaper, it was now possible to have film crews and directors filming “on location”. This allowed for a greater realism and diversity in the movies being shot. For the first time, people were able to see cities not as someone wanted them to be portrayed, but as they truly were. With this film, studios loosened up the reigns on such up-and-coming directors as Sydney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico), Brian DePalma (The French Connection), Martin Scorcese (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver), et al. The collective period became known as American Realism in film and was marked by on-location filming and ad-libbed emotional performances.

Powered by the declining optimism of the 60s hippies and a soundtrack marked by songs of mistrust and separation, and this movie has become an epic achievement in film and American lore. Easy Rider, the story of two late 60s cowboys with motorcycles instead of horses, encountering an America torn apart by racial and ideological conflict, searching for freedom in a country afraid of independent thought, remains the pinnacle achievement about the loss of dreams and idealism. With its unique editing and write-as-you-go screenplay, it was a film in the independent spirit, before there was such a thing as and independent film. Wyatt and Billy will continue to ride through the psyche of America, seeking Shelter From the Norm.

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