The first feature-length film biography of Bob Dylan’s life from 1961 to 1966, “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,” was released on Sept. 20, and made its PBS debut on Sept. 26 and 27. Packed with previously unreleased footage from concerts, song outtakes and interviews, for everyone that missed the debut of this phenomenal documentary on PBS, I highly recommend a trip to Best Buy.
It is not a simple task to tackle five very key and fast paced years in anyone’s life, let alone Dylan’s. But with someone like Martin Scorsese sitting in the director’s chair, I had faith in his capability.
The first disc starts off with Dylan’s early days, when he started to pick up both the piano, guitar and his early influences. The film then proceeds to hurry to 1961 where the real genius of the film comes out, and Dylan picks up his things and moves to Greenwich Village.
Dylan is a man who writes music about things that are happening around him. So naturally, it is important to get a feel for the environment that he lived in.
Through interviews with many of Dylan’s close friends, people he had played music with at the time, performance footage and other random clips, Scorsese does a brilliant job of putting the audience right there with him.
The first disc focuses on Dylan’s “baby fat” years, from 1961 to 1963, everything from the days of playing café after café every night, to studio footage from his first few albums and his signing with Columbia records.
Aside from the musical aspect, priceless clips of Dylan joking around are shown, so viewers can get a good glimpse of his personality.
The second disc picks up at the point in 1963 when Dylan had become an idol to the American people. It also picks up at the point where he was finished with the music scene he was in and was ready to try something new.
This disc zooms in on the era when Dylan went electric and picked up a backing band, a change many people did not easily adjust to. He was a major star at this stage of the game, and unlike before, his fans expected something particular from him.
The larger part of his set of fans simply was not ready for the new Dylan. Just like the first, the second disc does not fail to deliver. There is plenty of footage from concerts of the band playing over a roar of boos, and conferences with Dylan being verbally cornered by questions from upset people.
Released with the movie are both a soundtrack and a scrapbook. The soundtrack is also the seventh volume of the Bootleg series, containing 28 tracks in total; 26 of these tracks are previously unreleased material.
The scrapbook contains more than 100 rare photos of Dylan from the 50s and 60s, and has a CD counterpart that contains 60 minutes of interviews.
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