Directed by Martin Scorsese, a documentary on Bob Dylan, master-lyricist, musical genius and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Covers the period from 1961 - his first arrival in New York - to 1966, when he retired (not permanently, ultimately) after a motorcycle accident.Great documentary on an extraordinary man. Bob Dylan is one of the most influential people In music history, and director Martin Scorsese captures well his ability and influence. He captures too Dylan's rise to the top, from playing folk music clubs in New York to being one of the most famous rock stars on the planet.

I'm not the world's biggest Dylan fan, he's gone through too many artistic troughs for me, but when he's good ("Highway 61 Revisited", "Blood On The Tracks"), he's very good indeed but when he's bad - ("Nashville Skyline", most of "Desire" and "Time Out Of Mind" to pick some bigger targets) he's terrible.I get that his going electric was a big deal in rock history, possibly because it happened so suddenly and dramatically but whether it's more important than the Beatles going from a pop band to a rock band or the Stones from a blues band to a rock and roll band, I personally doubt. Still, I can't deny that from 1965 to 1966, he was on fire as he turned away from his folk roots to embrace rock and roll stardom and it's that latter part of this film that I enjoyed far more than the over-long first half purporting to trace his roots and early influences.All sorts of folk-luvvies queue up in part one to relate the fleeting time they spent with the man who would be king with too many back-up clips of be-sweatered individuals singing very strangely and earnestly and I couldn't really care less about any of them to be honest. Things heat up considerably when he decides to go electric although even if it was initially done half-heartedly as he recorded an album ("Bringing It All Back Home") and played concerts half acoustic and half electric before going the whole hog.I recognised much of the '65 / '66 footage from "Don't Look Back" and other clips from the unreleased "Eat The Document" film and they are terrific. The vitriol Dylan takes from his so-called fans (especially an episode where he's accosted in a car for an autograph by a moronic young English couple) and the ignorance of journalists who ask inane questions of him has to be seen to be believed.The real coup for Scorsese was in getting Dylan himself to speak to camera in extended interviews, although several of these are obviously edited. In his pieces to camera, Dylan can't help but occasionally play up to his mystical persona but mostly he's quite candid, natural and engaging. Back in the day of course, he looked fantastic, pencil thin and tousle-haired and some of his put-downs are superb as witness his fan encounters or those interminable press-gatherings. I would have liked a little more insight into just why he first pulled on his Strat (I always credited it to the Animals version of "House Of The Rising Sun"), but any explanation or reason is left vague. Scorsese makes the real centre point of the film the famous Manchester Free Trade Hall gig where he confronts the taunting, obviously way more than five, unbelievers in the crowd by exhorting the band / Band to "Play it f*#king loud!". I love it when a pair of vox-poppers reactions after a gig in Newcastle are captured on film - "I came expecting folk music and instead got a pop group" to which the reply was along the lines of "That wasn't a pop group you saw tonight!".I suppose the film for me was like his half and half acoustic / electric album or concerts of the time, in that I infinitely preferred the second, electric half to the first. True fans may have got more out of it than I did and while I would say that bar "Blood On The Tracks", he was never this vital again, it felt privileged to see an artist at the peak of his powers which he wasn't from 1962-1964, but certainly was from 1965 - 1966.

Martin Scorcese "directed" or should we say "tailored" original footage pieces (in many occasions black-and-white snippets) into cohesive story that gives a glimpse into a world back than, Dylan's background and early influences. Dylan himself talks about these times and he comes across as clear-headed, witty and faintly intimidating - he skips completely any mention about his family, like they never existed and goes straight into arrival in New York where Greenwich Village was a center of folk music and this is where instantly he found his natural place between hungry but enthusiastic beatniks, poets and all sorts of artists who embraced him for who he was, one of them. Although Dylan's motives for arrival in New York were completely different (he wanted to visit his idol Woody Guthrie) somehow destiny placed him right where he belonged and just watching the atmosphere around him in this eccentric center of all kinds of creativity is a huge thrill to see.There were literary a hundreds of young folkie artists around at this time so its a miracle that young, skinny and defiantly unglamorous Dylan got attention of "Columbia records" that eventually gave him chance to record and catapulted him into stardom. Not some private owned, independent company without distribution but "Columbia records" that charted huge hits behind commercial artists of the day, usually backed with angelic choruses and strings. Surely there was a whole team of people involved, including savvy manager who made sure that Dylan's songs were also covered and recorded by many pop artists but eventually listeners and record buyers would come back to the source. Folk queen Joan Baez became his biggest champion and proudly introduced him to her audience, for a while they were THE couple of 1960s. The documentary makes clear that Dylan could go on like a protest singer forever but something inside of him itched for a change and he had to follow his artistic muse that led him to completely another direction, so he left Baez and protest songs and moved into blues rock that alienated a lot of followers - reaction of the audience is stunning as they would literary take this change very personally and yell at him on a stage. At certain point of the movie the whirl around him (specially on tours) becomes truly uncomfortable with thousands of people having their own expectations and becoming frighteningly hostile, from autograph seekers to a journalists ("suck your sunglasses" somebody with a camera orders during a press conference) - this literate, clever and artistic young man faced a mass hysteria mixed with amazing patronizing and deliberate misunderstandings. The movie ends in 1966 when motorcycle accident literary stops him in his tracks and forced him to re-think his next steps. Amazing not only because of historical perspective of politics, music industry and atmosphere at the time but also because lots of colleagues testify their experiences and views.

Like the singer's own movie,"Renaldo and Clara" ,"no direction home " is a very looong movie (210 min);there the comparison ends : you do not need the fast forward button here ;every minute of Scorcese 's movie is absorbing ;it might be the best movie dealing with rock ever made.Although it only covers Dylan's first years (it stops in 1966 with the motorcycle accident),it is so dense, so well-documented that it seems to depict an entire life;everyone says ,anyway,that those years were the best in Dylan' s career:there were great things afterwards ("blood on the tracks" ) but who could claim that his music was more ground-breaking than in the 1963-66 era?"North country blues" ,for instance ,is not heard ,but when Dylan talks about the miners in his hometown ,and he tells us about their plight and the fact that they did not think of rebellion ,it's impossible not to think of the heroine who "married John Thomas a miner".Although it's linear ,the movie includes scenes of the " rock" period even when Dylan is still a folk singer and has not yet made an album.this may puzzle people not familiar with Dylan's biography but are there any in the people who watch the film?Scorcese displays a sense of humor which Dylan possessed in those years :for instance "when the ship comes in" (Joan Baez had already told the anecdote in her "and a voice to sing with" autobiography ) was written because Dylan was denied a room in a hotel;it became an anthem in Washington with MLK!When we see Dylan playing in public (and there are plenty of live songs) we say to ourselves that all these versions are much superior to the studio recordings which sound often like demos :this is confirmed by the singer in the movie.When asked if he prefers to be acclaimed or booed (he is booed several times in the movie),Dylan hints at Billie Holiday's impressive "strange fruit" after which the audience was silent . A lot of people ,from Dylan's legend (with the exception of Maria Muldaur)play a big part in the movie:the women, Echo,Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez of course:I'm sure that many people will think that too much is given over to Baez but I personally think that her contribution is vital to the story.Early in the movie,Dylan said that she opened a world for him.Her new cover of "love is just a four-letter world' is moving.Also of great interest are Pete Seeger's ,Dave Van Ronk's ,Allen Ginsberg's and Mike Bloomfield's contributions.Much to my surprise ,an important musician such as Robbie Robertson is not interviewed whereas he's often on the screen.Minor quibble: the interaction between Dylan and the Beatles (and to a lesser degree with the other groups of the British invasions ) is almost passed over in silence .Dylan made history: the events depicted in parallel to his-story (Kennedy,MLK or the cold war when he was a teenager) are reflected in his works ,not only the protest song (the prophetic " a hard rain's gonna fall" and the universal "only a pawn in her game" ) but also in the "surrealist" ones ("desolation row")Bob Dylan was the greatest American songwriter of the twentieth century: he's got the movie he deserved.Like this ... try these .... None of these movies come close to " No direction come" though...."Renaldo and Clara" (1978) for fans only;the others should try the DVD which includes all the live performances ONLY."Hard Rain" (MTV 1976) unfairly overlooked ,this concert includes fine Dylan/Baez duets as well as a heavy metal "shelter from the storm" version."The concert for Bangla Desh" (Saul Swimmer 1972) 5 songs with Harrison,Starr and Leon Russel;youtube offers an outtake ,a Harrison /Dylan duet , "if not for you" ."Don't look back" (Pennbaker,1967;Scorcese 's movie includes many extracts of this excellent documentary)"The last waltz" (Scorcese 1978) made when the Band split;Dylan's songs include an exciting version of "baby let me follow you down" ."Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid " (Peckinpah 1973) Alias who? Best avoid.