After establishing that Dylan grew up in a small Minnesota town, the documentary settles in to examine his career from 1961 to 1966, which corresponds to the period of his life from ages 20 to 25. He relocates from Minnesota to Greenwich Village just as the folk music craze is hitting, and he soon gains recognition as both songwriter and performer. The lyrics to many of his songs have sociopolitical implications, and he performs using only acoustic guitar and harmonica. By 1963, he is famous and his song "Blowin' in the Wind" has become an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement.
But the Beatles burst onto the scene, the Vietnam War polarizes American society, and folk music begins to wane as a mainstream entertainment. Dylan's lyrics start to lose some of their flavor of political protest, and he introduces the use of electric instruments and drums into his performances. His music becomes more like rock and less like folk. The documentary ends at a 1966 Dylan concert where some of the people in the audience vent their feelings of betrayal. An angry concert-goer screams "Judas!" at Dylan, who counters with a loud, electrified rendition of "Like a Rolling Stone."
Now at this point, I should admit that I know very little about Bob Dylan and even less about 1960's folk music. I have no expertise in the subject matter in "No Direction Home." All I can do is give you my personal reaction to the documentary.
It seems to me that by the end of the 1950's, many Americans in their teens and twenties were ambivalent about social conformity, mass media and mass production, and they felt at least a degree of alienation from mainstream culture. That set up a condition where there was a huge audience receptive to folk music in general and Dylan's brand of it in particular. But I think from Dylan's point of view, there was a problem: folk music is usually perceived as being about getting back to one's roots, while I don't see Dylan as a roots guy at all. And I believe the acoustic versus electric conflict was essentially over the roots issue. Incidentally, I don't think Scorsese sees Dylan as a roots guy either, and that's why the documentary is titled "No Direction Home" from a line in "Like a Rolling Stone."
Since the commercial folk music of the 1960's had its origins in traditional music by and of working-class people, many believed it ought to have something to do with the collective working together to make a better world. That seems to me to be what Pete Seeger and Joan Baez were about. But my reading of Dylan is that he was more concerned with the individual, particularly the outsider and the underdog. The documentary makes it look as though Dylan had no specific political agenda, and I think he was catapulted to fame in the early 1960's primarily because he captured the alienation of American youth. In any event, after only a few years of popularity, folk music ended up in the margins of popular culture, apparently because the public came to view it as naïve.
"No Direction Home" focuses on Dylan the professional, and if you're expecting it to tell you much about his personal life, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. For example, during the time period covered by the documentary, he got married and had a baby, but this is never mentioned in the film.
"No Direction Home" is so long that it's divided into two parts with Part 1 ending around the time of the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan performed "With God on Our Side" as a duet with Joan Baez. On DVD, the documentary is a two-disc set with Part 1 on Disc One and Part 2 on Disc Two. Part 1 runs 1 hour 53 minutes, while the duration of Part 2 is 1 hour 35 minutes. Disc One offers no bonus materials of any consequence, but there are some on Disc Two.
Continued on the Next Page: More About the Bonus Materials
