He's Not There: Bob Dylan and the Press
Posted: 11/26/2007 | By: Greg Mitchell
A fair portion of the ludicrous new Todd Haynes movie inspired by Bob Dylan, released this past week, "I'm Not There," shows him sparring with the press, one British reporter in particular. Those scenes are often a mess, like much of the rest of the movie, and poorly written (if acted beguilingly by Cate Blanchett as the Dylan figure). There's not a moment in those sequences as hysterical and revealing as one scene in the recent PBS Martin Scorcese documentary, "No Direction Home," now available on DVD.
It catches a press photographer, at a news conference during the same 1966 tour featured in the movie, asking the young folk-turned-rock star to pose for a picture.
?Suck on your glasses,? the gentleman instructs.
Dylan, fingering his Ray-bans, rebels. ?You want me to suck on my glasses?? he asks incredulously.
?Just suck your glasses,? the photog advises.
?Do YOU want to suck my glasses?? Dylan asks, and he hands them over. The man, yes, sucks on his glasses. ?Anybody else want to suck them?? Bob wonders.
This exchange was only one of several press games/battles that played a key role in the documentary, as Dylan burns out, not just from the boos that greeted his switch from acoustic to electric but from inane questioning by the press. The doc ends with Dylan begging for a long vacation, followed by end notes revealing that he had his famous motorcycle accident a few months later--and then did not tour for seven years. That?s one way to Beat the Press.
The new Haynes movie does try to portray some of that -- if you can sit through it that long. At two hours and fifteen minutes it's, to coin a phrase, too much of nothing. And that was true for me even though I got most of the obscure references and in-jokes, such as "See ya later, Allen Ginsberg" and "pack up the meats, sweet."
The media angle is fascinating, however. Dylan always had a combative relationship with reporters, and wrote one of the most scathing and influential attacks on the press (at least it 's been interpreted that way) in modern times, ?Ballad of A Thin Man.? That song holds the memorable refrain: ?Something is happenin' here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?? It's in the Haynes movie, too.
And Dylan was still at it, nearly four decades later. In 2005, on "60 Minutes," the late Ed Bradley asked him about the passage in his recent memoir ?Chronicles? where Dylan revealed that he always figured the press was something "you lied to." Bob told Bradley that he knew he had to answer to God, but not to reporters.
Of course, there was a time when some people thought Dylan was God. That's certainly a subtext of the Haynes film.
In any case, the Scorsese doc shows plenty of evidence of why Dylan turned off to the press long ago. Along with many of his fans, they just didn?t "get" him, especially when he changed the face of popular music in the mid-1960s.
?You don?t sing protest songs anymore,? a reporter asks in that film.
?All my songs are protest songs,? Dylan replies evenly. ?All I do is protest.? That's repeated practically word for word in the Haynes flick.
At a 1965 press conference, someone asked Dylan how many other protest singers existed. Dylan pondered it, then replied, ?About 136.? No one laughed.
That's where the Haynes movie cuts the scene. But the real-life kicker was even better.
?You say about 136?-or exactly 136?? the actual reporter followed up.
?Either 136 -- or 142,? Dylan said, settling it.
On another occasion, as shown in the Scorcese film, a man asks, ?For those of us well over 30, how do you label yourself and what?s your role??
Dylan laughs, then answers, ?Well, I sort of label myself as well under 30-?and my role is just to stay here as long as I can.?
In the Scorsese film, the modern day Dylan looks back at all of this. ?I had no answers to any of those questions,? he explains. ?But it didn?t stop the press from asking them. For some reason they thought performers had the answers to all these problems in society. It?s absurd.?
He also says: ?People had a warped idea of me, usually those outside the music industry-??spokesman of a generation,? and all that.?
Spokesman or not, so many of Dylan's vintage lyrics (from "Down in the flood, it's gonna be your fault" to "Sometimes even the president of the United States must have to stand naked") ring true today. Forget the Haynes movie -- Dylan truly is "Not There" -- and just burrow into some of his song catalog instead. Something is happen' there, but you might not know it, from the Haynes film.
*
You can comment at Greg Mitchell's blog, at:
Dylan.
It catches a press photographer, at a news conference during the same 1966 tour featured in the movie, asking the young folk-turned-rock star to pose for a picture.
?Suck on your glasses,? the gentleman instructs.
Dylan, fingering his Ray-bans, rebels. ?You want me to suck on my glasses?? he asks incredulously.
?Just suck your glasses,? the photog advises.
?Do YOU want to suck my glasses?? Dylan asks, and he hands them over. The man, yes, sucks on his glasses. ?Anybody else want to suck them?? Bob wonders.
This exchange was only one of several press games/battles that played a key role in the documentary, as Dylan burns out, not just from the boos that greeted his switch from acoustic to electric but from inane questioning by the press. The doc ends with Dylan begging for a long vacation, followed by end notes revealing that he had his famous motorcycle accident a few months later--and then did not tour for seven years. That?s one way to Beat the Press.
The new Haynes movie does try to portray some of that -- if you can sit through it that long. At two hours and fifteen minutes it's, to coin a phrase, too much of nothing. And that was true for me even though I got most of the obscure references and in-jokes, such as "See ya later, Allen Ginsberg" and "pack up the meats, sweet."
The media angle is fascinating, however. Dylan always had a combative relationship with reporters, and wrote one of the most scathing and influential attacks on the press (at least it 's been interpreted that way) in modern times, ?Ballad of A Thin Man.? That song holds the memorable refrain: ?Something is happenin' here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?? It's in the Haynes movie, too.
And Dylan was still at it, nearly four decades later. In 2005, on "60 Minutes," the late Ed Bradley asked him about the passage in his recent memoir ?Chronicles? where Dylan revealed that he always figured the press was something "you lied to." Bob told Bradley that he knew he had to answer to God, but not to reporters.
Of course, there was a time when some people thought Dylan was God. That's certainly a subtext of the Haynes film.
In any case, the Scorsese doc shows plenty of evidence of why Dylan turned off to the press long ago. Along with many of his fans, they just didn?t "get" him, especially when he changed the face of popular music in the mid-1960s.
?You don?t sing protest songs anymore,? a reporter asks in that film.
?All my songs are protest songs,? Dylan replies evenly. ?All I do is protest.? That's repeated practically word for word in the Haynes flick.
At a 1965 press conference, someone asked Dylan how many other protest singers existed. Dylan pondered it, then replied, ?About 136.? No one laughed.
That's where the Haynes movie cuts the scene. But the real-life kicker was even better.
?You say about 136?-or exactly 136?? the actual reporter followed up.
?Either 136 -- or 142,? Dylan said, settling it.
On another occasion, as shown in the Scorcese film, a man asks, ?For those of us well over 30, how do you label yourself and what?s your role??
Dylan laughs, then answers, ?Well, I sort of label myself as well under 30-?and my role is just to stay here as long as I can.?
In the Scorsese film, the modern day Dylan looks back at all of this. ?I had no answers to any of those questions,? he explains. ?But it didn?t stop the press from asking them. For some reason they thought performers had the answers to all these problems in society. It?s absurd.?
He also says: ?People had a warped idea of me, usually those outside the music industry-??spokesman of a generation,? and all that.?
Spokesman or not, so many of Dylan's vintage lyrics (from "Down in the flood, it's gonna be your fault" to "Sometimes even the president of the United States must have to stand naked") ring true today. Forget the Haynes movie -- Dylan truly is "Not There" -- and just burrow into some of his song catalog instead. Something is happen' there, but you might not know it, from the Haynes film.
*
You can comment at Greg Mitchell's blog, at:
Dylan.