Bob Dylan

page 1 of 6
 1  2  3  4  5  6 

The Last Waltz

from MGM

Martin Scorsese's 1978 capsule history of the Band is mixed with footage of the group's allegedly last performance (certainly their last performance as a quintet) in this particularly stylish concert film. Scorsese shoots the players and their sundry guests with the same flair and enthusiasm one can see in the later The Color of Money or Goodfellas. He also proves a good interviewer with Band members, particularly Robbie Robertson, whose sleepy-sexy good looks make a star-caliber impression in close-up. But the film's real hook is the stage show, which features a rotation of rock legends (Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, and so on) playing with the Band before a wildly appreciative audience. --Tom Keogh

Twenty-five years ago on Thanksgiving Day 1976 five thousand cheering fans gathered for the historic farewell concert of "The Band". In Martin Scorsese's "brilliant" (Newsweek) film superstars Eric Clapton Joni Mitchell Neil Young and Van Morrison join the musicians on-stage along with one-time collaborator Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr in an unforgettable finale.System Requirements:Running Time: 117 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2002 MGM Studios. Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: PG UPC: 027616875754 Manufacturer No: 1003426

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song

from Genius Products (Ingram)

PETE SEEGER: THE POWER OF SONG (DVD MOVIE)

Pete Seeger reads The Wall Street Journal! That's perhaps the most startling revelation in Jim Brown's (The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time) wonderful documentary that etches an indelible portrait of an American icon and a global treasure. As a solo performer and as a member of the Weavers, Seeger introduced America to its musical heritage and was instrumental in ushering in the folk music revival in the 1960s. Branded as an "evil Commie" for his leftist beliefs, he is hailed here as an "absolute patriot" and "a living testament to the First Amendment." Seeger didn't call out politicians or presidents. He called out backward policies, unjust laws, and divisive attitudes. Songs that he popularized, or were covered by others, such as "We Shall Overcome," "The Hammer Song," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," and "Turn, Turn, Turn," became Civil Rights and anti-war anthems. Music, he eloquently states in The Power of Song, should not be used just to forget one's troubles, but to also help to understand and to do something about your troubles. Whether singing work songs at union rallies or Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to schoolchildren, Seeger used folk music as a uniter. The Power of Song is a profile in courage. In dramatic archival footage, he is seen defying the House Un-American Activities Committee. Seeger, never in it for the money, recalls how he quit the phenomenally popular Weavers when the other members agreed to do a cigarette commercial. Seeger was green before green was cool. At 88, he lives in the log cabin that he built and continues to work the land; chopping wood and hauling water. This film also chronicles his successful campaign to clean up the polluted Hudson River.

The Power of Song" is more than a great life story. It's also a great love story. Toshi, his wife of more than 60 years, emerges as an extraordinary woman who has greatly sacrificed to allow Seeger to take his music and message around the world (at one point she jokes that she wished her husband chased women instead of causes so she could leave him). Seeger says his singing voice is gone, but his spirit is undimmed (one clip captures him standing on the roadside with a handful of war protesters). Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Mary Travers, and family members are among those who pay tribute, but Seeger's own plain-spoken words and the concert footage and performance clips--by turns joyous and profoundly moving--take full measure of the man as a musicologist, iconoclast, and "social artist." One admirer says of Seeger that he stood for justice and had powerful enemies. That makes him sound like a superhero. In his own gentle way, perhaps he was. --Donald Liebenson

Bob Dylan - No Direction Home

from Paramount

Songwriter. Rocker. Rebel. Legend.He is one of the most influential inspiring and ground-breaking musicians of our time. Now Academy Award®-nominated director Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas 1990) brings us the extraordinary story of Bob Dylan's journey from roots in Minnesota to his early days in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village to his tumultuous ascent to pop stardom in 1966. Joan Baez Allen Ginsberg and others share their thoughts and feelings about the young singer who would change popular music forever. With never-before-seen footage exclusive interviews and rare concert performances it's the definitive portrait fans the world over have been anticipating for decades; the untold story of a living American legend.System Requirements:Running Time 207 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 097360310542 Manufacturer No: 031054

It's virtually impossible to approach No Direction Home without a cluster of fixed ideas. Who doesn't have their own private Dylan? The true excellence of Martin Scorsese's achievement lies in how his documentary shakes us free of our comfortable assumptions. In the process, it plays out on several levels at once, each taking shape as an unfailingly fascinating narrative. There is, of course, the central story of an individual genius staking out his artistic identity. But along with this Bildungsroman come other threads and contexts: most notably, the role of popular culture in postwar America, art's self-reliance versus its social responsibilities, and fans' complicity with the publicity machine in sustaining myths. All of these threads reinforce each other, together weaving the film's intricate texture.

Scorsese's 200-plus-minute focus on Dylan's earliest years allows for a portrayal of unprecedented depth, with multiple angles: a rich composite photo is the result. The main narrative has an epic quality: it moves from Dylan growing up in cold-war Minnesota through Greenwich Village coffeehouses and the Newport Folk Festival, climaxing in the controversial 1966 U.K. tour that crowned a period of unbridled and explosive creativity. In his transition from Robert Allen Zimmerman to Bob Dylan, we observe him concocting his impossible-to-describe, unique combination of the topical with the archaic, like an ancient oracle. Scorsese was able to access previously unseen footage from the Dylan archives, including performances, press conferences, and recording sessions. He also uses interviews with Dylan's friends, ex-friends, and fellow artists, and, intriguingly, with the notoriously reclusive Dylan himself (who looks back to provide glosses on the early years), fusing what could have turned into a tiresome series of digressions and tangents into a powerful whole as enlightening, eccentric, contradictory, and ultimately irreducible as its subject.

Some of the deeply personal bits remain unrevealed, but Dylan's preternatural self-assurance acquires a slightly self-deprecating, even comic edge via some of his reflective comments. Alongside the arrogance, we see touching moments of the young artist's reverence for Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash. Joan Baez, in a poignant confessional mood, comes off well, and the late Allen Ginsberg is so seraphically charming he almost steals the show a few times. A crucial throughline is Dylan's hunger for recognition and ability to shape perceptions so that would be singled out as not just another dime-a-dozen folk singer. It's illuminating--particularly for those familiar with the artist's latter-day aloofness on stage--to see his reactions to audience booing in the wake of his "betrayal" in this fuller context. No Direction Home also makes clear--in a way that wasn't possible in D.A. Pennebaker's iconic Don't Look Back--how Dylan's ability to manipulate his persona always, at its core, protects the urge for expression: Dylan's ultimate mandate, as an artist, is never to be pinned down. As Scorsese masterfully shows, the myth around Dylan only grows bigger the more we discover about him. --Thomas May

DVD features: This two-disc set of Scorsese's full two-part documentary includes treats such as Dylan working on a song at his hotel during the UK tour as well as performing several songs as in concert or on TV.

More for the Dylanologist

No Direction Home: The Soundtrack	Chronicles: Volume One (paperback edition)	Bob Dylan Scrapbook
Don't Look Back	The Bob Dylan Bootleg Series	The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz [Blu-ray]

from MGM (Video & DVD)

Martin Scorsese's 1978 capsule history of the Band is mixed with footage of the group's allegedly last performance (certainly their last performance as a quintet) in this particularly stylish concert film. Scorsese shoots the players and their sundry guests with the same flair and enthusiasm one can see in the later The Color of Money or Goodfellas. He also proves a good interviewer with Band members, particularly Robbie Robertson, whose sleepy-sexy good looks make a star-caliber impression in close-up. But the film's real hook is the stage show, which features a rotation of rock legends (Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, and so on) playing with the Band before a wildly appreciative audience. --Tom Keogh

It started as a concert. It became a celebration. Join an unparalleled lineup of rock superstars asthey celebrate The Band's historic 1976 farewell performance. Directed by Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Goodfellas), The Last Waltz is not only "the most beautiful rock film evermade" (New York Times) it's "one of the most important cultural events of the last two decades" (Rolling Stone)!

The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965

from Sony

Matched only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan continues to captivate music and pop culture fans with a seemingly never-ending stream of new and old recordings, books, documentaries, feature films, and more. The Other Side of the Mirror - Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 is a worthy addition to the canon; whether this 83-minute compilation will serve to illuminate the Dylan myth or merely perpetuate it is open to question, but without a doubt there's plenty of fascinating material here. There are nearly 20 songs represented, covering three consecutive years of Dylan appearances at the famed Rhode Island festival. Some have been seen before (most recently in No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan doc, and in Festival, a Newport chronicle released on DVD that same year and directed by Murray Lerner, who is also responsible for The Other Side of the Mirror). Some are from Dylan's daytime "workshops," others from his nighttime main stage performances. Some are complete, others oddly truncated. Some are terrific (like "Chimes of Freedom," 1964), others not so much (cf. the turgid "With God on Our Side" from '63, with Joan Baez adding shrill harmony). In any case, these were the years when Dylan assumed the mantle of "spokesman of a generation," whether he wanted it or not. We see him evolving from the earnest young protest singer of '63 to the visionary artist of the following year who, with the astonishing torrent of rhymes, alliterations, symbols, and brilliant turns of phrase in "Chimes" and "Mr. Tambourine Man," turned the whole notion of songwriting on its ear. And, of course, we also witness Dylan's turn from acoustic to electric guitar, when he was joined onstage by members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (sans Butterfield himself) in 1965; only two songs from that legendary (and, at the time, infamous) gig are seen here, and viewed four decades after the fact, neither "Maggie's Farm" nor "Like a Rolling Stone" is all that special, notwithstanding some searing solo work by guitarist Mike Bloomfield. The DVD package, which includes a bonus interview with Lerner and a nice booklet with liner notes by Tom Piazza, adds to the appeal of what has to rank as a must-have for Dylanologists of every stripe. --Sam Graham

The Other Side of the Mirror - DVD

Few performances in history are as legendary - or as controversial - as Bob Dylan's 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. In a single, galvanizing instant, Dylan plugged an entire generation in, forever changing not only the way the music was made, but the way it was heard. By putting you in the audience for Dylan's Newport performances from 1963 through that pivotal set in 1965, Academy Award®-winning director Murray Lerner's The Other Side Of The Mirror captures Dylan's metamorphosis from the folk family's best-kept secret to rock's fiercely confrontational poet who would electrify an entire nation and become the voice of his generation.

CHAPTER LIST

All I Really Want To Do (7/24/1965) - afternoon workshop

1963

North Country Blues

With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)

Talkin' World War III Blues

Who Killed Davey Moore?

Only A Pawn In Their Game

Blowin' In The Wind (with The Freedom Singers, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary)

1964

Mr. Tambourine Man

Johnny Cash sings Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Joan Baez sings Mary Hamilton as Bob Dylan

It Ain't Me, Babe (with Joan Baez)

With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)

Chimes Of Freedom

1965

If You Gotta Go, Go Now

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Maggie's Farm (electric)

Like A Rolling Stone (electric)

Mr. Tambourine Man

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Bonus Feature: Interview with director Murray Lerner

Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (1965 Tour Deluxe Edition)

by D.A. Pennebaker from New Video Group

Both a classic documentary and a vital pop-cultural artifact, D.A. Pennebaker's portrait of Bob Dylan captures the seminal singer-songwriter on the cusp of his transformation from folk prophet to rock trendsetter. Shot during Dylan's 1965 British concert tour, Don't Look Back employs an edgy vérité style that was, and is, a snug fit with the artist's own consciously rough-hewn persona. Its handheld black-and-white images and often-gritty London backdrops suggest cinematic extensions of the archetypal monochrome portraits that graced Dylan's career-making early-'60s album jackets.

Pennebaker's access to the legendarily private troubadour enables us to witness Dylan's shifting moods as he performs, relaxes with his entourage (including then lover Joan Baez, road manager Bob Neuwirth, and poker-faced manager Albert Grossman), and jousts with other musicians (notably Animals alumnus Alan Price and Scottish folksinger Donovan), fans, and press. It's a measurement of the filmmaker's acuity that the conversations are often as gripping as Dylan's solo performances. Grossman's machinations with British promoters, Baez's hip serenity, a grizzled British journalist's surrender to the fact of Dylan's artistry, and the artist's own taunting dismissal of a clueless sycophant are all absorbing.

With the exception of the studio recording of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," the live performances (including five newly restored, complete audio tracks excised from the original film but included on the DVD version) are constrained by crude audio gear. Their urgency, however, is timeless, as is Pennebaker's film, a legitimate cornerstone for any serious rock video collection. --Sam Sutherland

Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back - 65 Tour Edition is the ultimate look at Bob Dylan's concert tour of England in the spring of 1965 - one of the most intimate profiles of an artist ever put to film. This definitive set includes the remastered classic film by D.A. Pennebaker a brand-new hour-long look at Dylan and the original 1968 companion book to the film all housed in an eye-catching collectible package. More than just a concert film Don't Look Back is a window into the spirit of the 60s and one of the poet-musicians whose words and songs defined it.Features: Five Original Uncut Audio Tracks Including: "It Ain't Me Babe" "It's All Over Now" "Baby Blue" "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll" "To Ramona"Two Commentaries by Director D.A. Pennebaker and Former Tour Manager Bob NeuwirthNever-Before-Seen Version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Cue-Card SequenceOriginal Theatrical TrailerBob Dylan 65 Revisited - A Brand-New Pennebaker Work Culled From Over 20 Hours of Never-Before-Seen Footage of Dylan's 1965 English TourNew Commentary with D.A. Pennebaker and Former Tour Manager Bob NeuwirthDon't Look Back Companion Book - A 168-Page Collectible Reproduction of the Rare 1968 Edition Packed with Over 200 PhotosCollectible Flipbook Featuring a Frame-by-Frame Look at the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Cue-Card SequenceSystem Requirements:Run Time: 96 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 767685982433 Manufacturer No: AAE-9824

Bob Dylan: 1978-1989 - Both Ends of the Rainbow

from Chrome Dreams Media

This film reviews the years from late-1978 to the release of 1989's Oh Mercy - an album that was seen by many as a huge return to form. This period of Dylan's life and career is one of the most controversial fascinating and misunderstood of all. With the aid of rare Dylan footage live and studio versions of the most pivotal songs exclusive interviews with his closest allies from that time contributions from Dylan experts biographers and other commentators and many other features this film provides the most detailed document of the 1980s according to Bob Dylan ever made. Featured interviewees include: Shot of Love producer Chuck Plotkin; the same album's first engineer Toby Scott; chief engineer on Infidels and Empire Burlesque Josh Abbey; Daniel Lanois' assistant producer for Oh Mercy Malcolm Burn; first engineer on Oh Mercy Mark Howard; music collaborator and lead guitarist on Empire Burlesque Ted Perlman; legendary Jamaican rhythm partners who featured on Infidels Sly and Robbie; Guitarist and bandleader for Empire Burlesque and Knocked Out Loaded Ira Ingber - and many others...Bonus Materials:Full Contributor BiographiesThe Dylan Gospel Interviews - Bob Dylan in conversation during his most fervent phase of Christianity - with commentary by Derek Barker.Beyond DVD sectionSystem Requirements:Running Time: 120 minutesFormat: DVD AUDIO Genre: MUSIC DVD/LIVE PERFORMANCES UPC: 823564513195 Manufacturer No: CVIS603

Down the Tracks: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan

by Stephen Gammond from Eagle Vision Media

DOWN TRACKS:MUSIC/INFLUENCED BOB DYLAN (DVD MOVIE)

Concert for Bangladesh (2pc)

by Saul Swimmer from Rhino Records

Before We Are the World, before the Amnesty International concerts, before Live Aid, Live 8, 46664, and all the other charitable and/or political events that have used popular music as their principal draw, there was George Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, a stirring affair released here in a fine two-disc set. The cause--raising money for the beleaguered people of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), who were ravaged by war, floods, and famine--was enough to attract the support of stars like the former Beatle, who had never fronted a band before, along with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, both of whom had been out of the limelight for some years due to various personal problems and choices. Given the little time that Harrison, whose help had been solicited by sitar master Ravi Shankar, had to organize the affair, the results are very impressive indeed: the enormous band, which also features Ringo Starr, Leon Russell, and Billy Preston, is tight, the music (spotlighting tunes from Harrison's All Things Must Pass, along with a few Beatle numbers) inspired, the musicians at the top of their games. (Only Clapton is sub-par; looking out of it and playing weakly, he's a far cry from the guy who, some 30 years later, would spearhead the magnificent Concert for George.) For some, the opportunity to see Dylan onstage with Harrison, Starr, and Russell (playing bass) will be the big attraction. Others will thrill to the remastered DVD sound and restored picture. Still others will revel in an entire disc of bonus material, including three previously-unreleased performances and a documentary featuring new interviews with many of the participants. 1971 was a bleak period in rock history; the Beatles had broken up, Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison were dead, Woodstock was a distant memory. The Concert for Bangladesh shone like a beacon, a revelation of the better angels that reside within us all. And it still does. --Sam Graham

The Concert for Bangladesh was the first benefit concert of its kind in that it brought together an extraordinary assemblage of major artists collaborating for a common humanitarian cause-setting the precedent that music could be used to serve a higher purpose. The concert sold out Madison Square Garden and has helped to generate millions for UNICEF and raised awareness for the organization around the world, as well as among other musicians and their fans. It is acknowledged as the inspiration and the forerunner to the major global fundraising events of recent years. To quote the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, "George and his friends were pioneers." All artists' royalties from the sales of the DVD will go to UNICEF.

Bob Dylan - MTV Unplugged (1994)

from Sony

Recorded in 1994, Bob Dylan: MTV Unplugged is a brilliant, quietly impassioned performance by one of pop music's most significant figures. Fronting his empathetic five-piece band (Bucky Baxter excels on dobro, mandolin, and pedal steel guitar; Bob himself plays frequent "rhythm leads" on his Martin), Dylan performs four of his best-known and potentially most overdone tunes in the 73-minute show; but "All Along the Watchtower," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" all sound great, with Dylan, as is his wont, re-casting both the arrangements and melodies. Even better is the obscure "John Brown" (written in the early '60s but apparently unreleased by Dylan until now), a driving, biting war protest song of the kind that made him famous, while "Dignity," a lesser-known tune from the '90s, is filled with great lines ("Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues... said he was abused by dignity"), and "Shooting Star" revisits Oh Mercy, Dylan's best '80s album. Through it all, Dylan says nary a word, although he does smile and shake some hands (even removing his shades) at the end. And as good as it may be, this show is most likely different from every Dylan concert before or since, a sure sign of an artist in no danger of becoming irrelevant. --Sam Graham