Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) Reviews

• there will be many arguing for what is so or not so in this wondrous extravaganza, but it will not be me

  christopher-underwood2019-06-12

  Stories told about Bob Dylan are almost as old as the man himself and it will not be me who claims to unravel the real from the unreal or the interesting from the uninteresting. In the same way there will be many arguing for what is so or not so in this wondrous extravaganza, but it will not be me. The original footage included here is of far higher quality, both technically and artistically, than we had any right to expect and if it is woven imaginatively, so much the better. I don't recall Dylan ever looking as animated as here on stage, nor perhaps as consistently happy but more importantly knocking out the songs so very well. This is a fantastic (even if possibly fantastical) film which I enjoyed from beginning to end and if someone wants to pick apart the Sharon Stone or Hurricane sequences, let them I don't care. No fan of Bob Dylan will not want to see this. No fan of Bob Dylan will (or at least should) be disappointed with this extremely well made tribute to the man and record of a certain time.

• Down In The Movie

  Fiahm2019-06-19

  Going into this I thought it was going to be a straightforward follow-up to Scorcese's excellent 'No Direction Home' documentary a few years back. It was only after it ended I discovered that so much of it - the Sharon Stone and Jim Gianopulos interviews, "Rep. Jack Tanner", "Stefan Van Dorp" (the European filmmaker claiming to have shot all the footage) - are all fake, a not-at-all funny practical joke on the audience that detracts from and trivializes the much more interesting true story of the actual Rolling Thunder tour. If they were going to go this route of messing with fact and fiction, what would have been much more interesting would be to have gone back to the Renaldo & Clara footage and constructing a new film tying all the fictional stories shot then together in some compelling new way. Instead, dumb, unfunny, pointless false stories are cut in over actual events that take up time which could have been spent actually watching the many great live performances. The end result is a cheap, confusing, badly edited, badly paced mess that lessens Dylan's legacy and wastes the audience's time.

• Sympathetic live extracts polluted with appalling comments

  FrenchEddieFelson2019-06-15

  Documentaries are usually not my cup of tea. And is sadly one of them, with an annoying alternance of live performances of (yes!!!) on the first hand, and monologues or conversations as superficial as pointless (no, no and no!) on the second hand. This is probably reserved for hardcore and unconditional fans of « + », no matter what. For instance, we learn that smokes with, I quote, an « European style », thanks to a John Doe. Really ?!!? Just missing a scene during which reads an antique phone book, with a female blonde carefully listening and concluding with « that's interesting ». In fact, this scene almost exists: discusses about mental marriage with a woman who obviously wants something more than this discussion. Thus, I gave up after 30 minutes and I left this documentary in background music despite the appalling blah-blah-blah. As a synthesis: not for me, and, a posteriori, a cd or a live Blu-Ray of would have been undoubtedly a better choice.

• Bob pranks his fans and wastes an opportunity for a great documentary as well.

  TheOneWhoIsRight2019-06-13

  In this, what was a highly-anticipated documentary, Bob Dylan and Martin Scorsese decided instead to mix incredible footage of Bob playing and of Patti Smith and others with completely fictional characters and events making this not only not an actual, real documentary, but also ultimately Bob's joke on his fans. What a way to treat them. And what a terrible idea. Thus what could have been an incredible follow-up of sorts to No Direction Home is instead a waste of time and an insult. It would have been better if it was just live performances making up a movie instead of Bob's stupid ideas of jokes mixed in with the truth, as having them in makes it impossible to distinguish what is (or was) real and what isn't. All the stories lose credence, completely thrown out the window by the stupid decision to make the movie this way. Having such great live performances and other moments mixed in with fiction basically makes them wasted, and this whole project, while perhaps still fascinating to Bob's fans to see for the moment, maybe for a good year, ultimately will wind up in the trash bin of history due to this. Bob himself at one point says in the movie that the Rolling Thunder Revue is dead, well he sure went out of his way to kill it for good (all the while using this to promote his company's latest box set of him). What a shame, this movie could have been a masterpiece. Instead it's ultimately a sham.

• This made my ex-husband's Father's Day.

  jennifertrathan2019-06-17

  My ex and I saw Bob Dylan perform in 1984, a superb concert. My ex was and is a huge fan of his and as he doesn't own a TV (yes really!) I invited him to pop over and watch this on Netflix. The music is of course fabulous, Desire is my favourite Dylan album so it was a treat to hear so much from it. On the whole we both really enjoyed this. For me, the highlights were Bob and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's graveside. his interactions with Joan Baez (where they are talking about each marrying other people - wow), Scarlet Rivera (so talented) and the section about Ruben 'Hurricane' Carter. However, I wasn't too impressed with the fake present-day interviews. I felt they were distracting from the main event which for me was the footage from 1975 and the real interviews. This made my ex-husbands Father's Day mind, I'm sure he went home to listen to some of his vast Dylan music collection.