Bob Dylan is Masked and Anonymous

Bob Dylan once said "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." I'm no weatherman, and I can't say with any certainty which way the wind is blowing, but I know I'll want to avoid any breeze emanating from the cinema showing Masked and Anonymous, a movie starring and co-written by the rock 'n roll bard himself.

One of the characters, a network television executive, warns us early on when he says, "Something's starting to smell here." Dylan himself may have been aware that an odor was present when he decided to use a pseudonym, Sergei Petrov, in the screenplay credits. Director Larry Charles, the co-author, is billed as Rene Fontaine. Sadly, the all-star cast attracted to this project because of Dylan's involvement are not "masked and anonymous," except, perhaps, for Ed Harris whose brief, amusing cameo is performed in black-face.

Did I say "amusing"? I'm not sure if this is meant to be a comedy or a drama. It may have been intended to work like one of Dylan's songs from the ‘60s, you know, a surreal masterpiece like "Desolation Row" whose brilliant lyrics imply depths of meaning but are open to endless interpretation. But Masked and Anonymous is too haphazard and too pretentious to warrant much analysis.

Dylan plays Jack Fate, a now forgotten rock star released from prison to perform a benefit concert for an unidentified, fictional country racked by war and civil unrest. John Goodman plays the promoter, Uncle Sweetheart, a sleazy Colonel Tom Parker wannabe who hopes to pocket the profits for himself. The movie only comes to life when Goodman is on screen, but that's like saying an exhumed corpse seems to have been alive after burial because its hair continued to grow (an illusion resulting from the skin's having shrunk).

Jessica Lange is the representative for the skeptical TV network that plans to televise the concert. She furiously smokes cigarettes while pacing madly and looking frazzled. That's better than furiously praying which is what Penelope Cruz is required to do, unless she's praying for deliverance from this movie. Jeff Bridges, as a journalist named Tom Friend, seems intent on trying to actually deliver a performance, but that's impossible when acting with Dylan who is less animated than Elvis in the notorious "last photo" snapped while the King was at rest in his coffin.

This man who has made such imaginative use of language in some of the greatest songs ever written merely mumbles a few sentences of unremarkable and usually pointless dialogue, and offers an occasional voice-over that never succeeds in explaining anything. In one scene, Bridges as the journalist, harangues Dylan, saying "You're supposed to have all the answers" and compares him unfavorably with the late Jimi Hendrix. "Hendrix let it all hang out at Woodstock," he says without explaining what that means. Dylan defends himself, saying he's been letting it all hang out all along. If so, there's nothing there. In one of his voice-overs, Dylan himself says, "Maybe I'm just a singer and nothing more."

Of course, Dylan's statement is correct, or at least close to the truth. He is a singer. He's also a great songwriter, maybe even a poet, whose songs continue to dazzle and inspire music fans of many generations. He's nothing more than that, but that's more than enough. But many of his more ardent fans, especially those who discovered Dylan at the same time they stopped shaving and let their hair grow, consider him a guru who does indeed have all the answers.

If so, he's saving them for another project. There are no answers here, only questions, the most obvious of which is "Why bother?" Why bother making such a meaningless, deadening film, and why should anyone bother to see it?

Well, there is the concert footage, including a memorable rendition of "Dixie" and a tender "I'll Remember You." Here and there, you'll hear snatches of Dylan's studio recordings such as "Blind Willie McTell," a song that managed to convey more in five verses than Masked and Anonymous does in 104 minutes. But most of the soundtrack is devoted to cover versions of Dylan classics by everyone from the Grateful Dead to the Magokoro Brothers and Los Lobos. There's some fun to be had from a scene in the boardroom of the TV network where a wall-sized schedule of programming reveals titles taken from Dylan songs. Maybe someday, someone will make a TV series out of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." It's bound to be better than Masked and Anonymous.

© 2003 Brian W. Fairbanks


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The Band (and Dylan) in The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz is Martin Scorsese’s glossy souvenir of The Band's final concert on Thanksgiving night 1976 at San Francisco's Winterland Theater. With a major auteur behind the camera, The Last Waltz has more of the weight of a "real movie" than most rock documentaries, the majority of which have been made on the cheap, in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for theatrical distribution. Filmed in 35mm, Scorsese’s film looks more professional, but like most rock docs, it will likely appeal only to fans of its main subject.

The Band came to prominence in 1966. They were still known as The Hawks when they provided Bob Dylan with an electric arsenal that wowed and enraged his fans on a tour of Europe, preserved by Columbia Records on The Bootleg Series Volume Four: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert (actually recorded in Manchester, hence the quotation marks) belatedly released in 1998. Following Dylan’s motorcycle accident, they holed up with the bard in Woodstock and made the series of delightfully crude recordings that came to be known as The Basement Tapes. The Band’s Dylan connection meant the world was listening when they released their debut album, Music from Big Pink, in 1968.

Dylan appears near the finale performing "Forever Young," "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," and leading an all-star lineup on "I Shall Be Released."

In between the musical numbers with the other guest performers (Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Dr. John, and even Neil Diamond), there are interviews with The Band, most prominently Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson, in which they reminisce about music and light too many cigarettes. For the avid fan, this may be fascinating stuff. For the rest of us, it’s mildly interesting.

The Last Waltz was billed as The Band's "Farewell Concert” which may have inspired all those other rock bands, such as The Who, in the dozen or so “farewell” tours they embarked on in the years to come.


Brian W. Fairbanks

© 2013 Brian W. Fairbanks


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Gregory Peck in The Gunfigher

The 1950 western The Gunfighter hasn’t quite taken its place alongside Stagecoach and The Searchers as an unassailable classic, but a classic it certainly is. Its admirers included the late John Wayne who apparently never forgave the film’s author, William Bowers, for selling his script to Twentieth Century Fox rather than to the Duke’s own Batjac Productions where he would have starred in it himself. The film also made an impression on Bob Dylan whose epic 1986 ballad, "Brownsville Girl," pays tribute to both the movie and its star.

"There was this movie I seen one time," Dylan sings, "about a man riding across the desert and it starred Gregory Peck." It is only while riding through that vast, barren desert while the credits roll that Peck’s Johnny Ringo knows peace. The moment he enters town, any town, the aging gunfighter’s reputation as the fastest gun alive is a magnet for every young bully with a pistol.

"He only has two hands like the rest of us," one such youth tells his mates upon observing Ringo drinking alone at the bar. Ignoring the advice of his companions to leave the lean stranger alone, the young man quickly becomes the latest notch on Ringo’s gun. All that Ringo wants is to reunite with his wife and their son, settle down, and quietly live out his days, but in the eyes of the people he meets he is a myth come to life, a legend to praise or condemn. The children squeal with excitement knowing that a legendary gunfighter walks amongst them, the guardians of morality sneer at him with contempt and call upon the marshal to kick him out of town, and there’s always another trigger happy gunman eager to become a legend himself by outdrawing the man whose hands are said to be quicker than even Wyatt Earp’s.

Midway through the film, Ringo comes up against his most obnoxious challenger yet, a "squirt" played by Skip Homeier whose wiseguy manner and ever present sneer bring to mind Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death. The "squirt" trails Ringo like cow-dung on a boot heel, taunting him, challenging him to the ultimate contest, one in which the loser pays with his life.

The Dylan song reveals the ending (and its moral) in the first verse, but if you don’t stay with The Gunfighter through its final reel, you’ll miss one of Gregory Peck’s strongest performances. He’s fast all right, but he’s weary, too--tired of a reputation he never sought or respected. Ringo only killed in self-defense but the efficient way in which he did so gave rise to a legend and now makes him a constant target. For reasons beyond his control, self-defense is Ringo’s way of life. It’s a life in which, as Dylan sings, he "must always face his death."

Directed by Henry King from a screenplay by Bowers, The Gunfighter is a morality play that effectively examines the consequences of fame in the Old West. To be king of the mountain is not an end in itself. You must always climb higher to avoid being knocked down by the ones who want to wear your crown. It’s not surprising that this film spoke to the Duke and Dylan, both of whom knew something about the glories and the pitfalls of being the fastest gun in town.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 1999, Brian W. Fairbanks


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Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

When maverick filmmaker Sam Peckinpah submitted his 1973 western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to MGM for release, the troubled studio was in the midst of a catastrophic shakeup. James Aubrey, a former television executive, had taken the reins and had initiated a policy that caused the studio to turn away from the big-budget vehicles that helped earn its motto, "More stars than there are in the heavens," in favor of undistinguished vehicles populated by lesser names. Many films, including those produced under the previous regime, were severely altered, chopped up beyond recognition by studio lackeys without the cooperation of the directors. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was one film so victimized.

The follow-up to Peckinpah’s biggest box-office hit, the exciting, if conventional, Steve McQueen-Ali Macgraw teaming, The Getaway, Peckinpah’s long awaited western made it to theaters in a version dramatically different from Peckinpah’s vision. Scenes were shifted, other scenes were chopped out completely, and the music score by Bob Dylan, whose role of Alias marked his film acting debut, was played up beyond what Peckinpah originally intended. This mangled version of the story of the west’s most famous outlaw was panned by the majority of critics and ignored by audiences.

The only winner turned out to be Dylan, whose album of the score proved a hit, spawning the top 20 single, "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door," one of his most popular compositions.

In the early 90’s, after Peckinpah’s death, the film was restored to compliment his original vision and summarily released on home video. Some twenty minutes longer that the 103 minute edition that played theatrically in 1973, the result still leaves much to be desired.

The film opens with a dialogue between the title characters that seems to have been partly inspired by the presence of Dylan in the cast.

"How does it feel?" Billy asks his former friend Pat Garrett, quoting the famous refrain of "Like a Rolling Stone."

"It feels like times have changed," Garrett replies, paraphrasing the title of another famous Dylan anthem.

Either version of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid suggests that, for Peckinpah, the times had indeed changed, and not for the better. He seems to have lost his ability to effectively tell a story. The film meanders from one lifeless scene to another, all too casually following Garrett’s pursuit of his former friend and, now, enemy. The lead performers, James Coburn as Garrett and Kris Kristofferson as Billy, are entirely too low-key to create much interest in their conflict, and though there’s plenty of the director’s trademark violence, most of it just leaves one feeling indifferent, quite a contrast to the outrage that greeted the bloodbaths in Peckinpah’s masterpiece, The Wild Bunch or 1971’s Straw Dogs.

Dylan’s mostly instrumental score, obtrusive in the mangled 1973 version, is now so toned down that it is barely noticeable. Worse, the vocal rendition of "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door," very prominent in 1973 and the only consistent point of interest in that version, has been scrapped completely, robbing the film of what little emotional power it had.

If Dylan’s music merits praise, his acting is of little consequence. He hangs around, more often than not in the background, utters a few insignificant lines of dialogue, and looks as charmingly awkward as Elvis Presley did in Love Me Tender. Dylan’s big scene is one in which he is humiliated by Garrett who instructs the "boy" to read the labels off the canned foods in a grocery store. "Pork and beans...beef stew," the legendary songwriter reads, enunciating in a way that makes him sound like one of his imitators. It’s intriguing to watch one of rock and roll’s most literate and intelligent practitioners reduced to such silliness, but little else about his appearance offers much of interest.

No western fan can complain about the rest of the cast, though, which is populated by enough familiar faces to qualify Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as a veritable tribute to the genre: Jack Elam, Paul Fix, Elisha Cook, Jr., R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens (whose death scene provides the film’s only memorable moment), Gene Evans, Harry Dean Stanton, Barry Sullivan, L.Q. Jones, and Richard Jaeckal all pop up, and to make the cast all the more interesting there’s Jason Robards as Governor Lew Wallace and singer Rita Coolidge to be glimpsed, as well. In the end, however, nothing can prevent Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid from escaping its reputation as a misfire and a boring one at that. Violent it may be, but unlike previous Peckinpah efforts, it lacks blood from anywhere but the special effects department.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 1999 Brian W. Fairbanks



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