No Direction Home
Encyclopedia
No Direction Home is a documentary film
by Martin Scorsese
that traces the life of Bob Dylan
, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring, following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer
and songwriter, and the controversy surrounding his switch to a rock
style of music.
in both the United States (as part of the American Masters
series on PBS
) and the United Kingdom
(as part of the Arena
series on BBC Two
) on September 26–27 2005. A DVD
version of the film and accompanying soundtrack
album (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
) were released that same month.
The project eventually titled as No Direction Home began to take shape in 1995 when Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen, began scheduling interviews with Dylan's friends and associates. Among those interviewed were poet Allen Ginsberg
and folk musician Dave Van Ronk
, both of whom died before the film was completed. Dylan's old girlfriend Suze Rotolo
also granted a rare interview, and she later told Rolling Stone
Magazine that she was very pleased with the project's results. Dylan himself also sat for ten hours in a relaxed and open conversation with Rosen in 2000.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, an unnamed source close to the project claimed that Dylan himself had no involvement with the project apart from the interview, saying that "[Dylan] has no interest in this . . . Bob truly does not look back." However, work on the first installment of Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. 1, did overlap production of the project, though it's unclear how much, if any, influence Chronicles may have had on No Direction Home.
Though raw material was being gathered for the project, Rosen needed someone to edit and shape it into a quality motion picture, and celebrated filmmaker Martin Scorsese
was approached to 'direct' the documentary planned from the project. Scorsese eventually agreed and came aboard in 2001.
In the meantime, Dylan's offices gathered hundreds of hours of historical film footage dating from the time covered in No Direction Home. These included a scratchy recording of Dylan's high school rock band, his 1965 screen test
for Andy Warhol
, and newly-discovered footage of the famous Manchester Free Trade Hall
concert from May 17, 1966, when an angry fan called out "Judas!"
just before Dylan and the Hawks performed "Like a Rolling Stone." Shot by D.A. Pennebaker, the onstage, color footage was found in 2004 in a pile of water-damaged film recovered from Dylan's vault.
", on the Highway 61 Revisited
album.
terminal in Gloucestershire, England, in May 1966, shortly before the opening of the Severn Bridge
which replaced the ferry.
reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on 14 reviews. Critic Roger Ebert
gave the film 4/4 stars, stating that it "creates a portrait that is deep, sympathetic, perceptive and yet finally leaves Dylan shrouded in mystery, which is where he properly lives".
in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. , and Martin Scorsese received a Grammy Award
for directing for best long-form video.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
that traces the life of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring, following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer
Folk Singer
Folk Singer is a 1964 album by Muddy Waters. Waters plays acoustic guitar, backed by Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar...
and songwriter, and the controversy surrounding his switch to a rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
style of music.
Development
The film was first shown on televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in both the United States (as part of the American Masters
American Masters
American Masters is a PBS television show which produces biographies on the artists, actors and writers of the United States who have left a profound impact on the nation's popular culture. It is produced by WNET in New York City...
series on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
) and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(as part of the Arena
Arena (TV series)
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. It has run since 1 October 1975, and over five hundred episodes have been made. Arena covers all manner of subjects, from profiles of notable people such as Bob Dylan to the Ford Cortina car...
series on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
) on September 26–27 2005. A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
version of the film and accompanying soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
album (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings....
) were released that same month.
The project eventually titled as No Direction Home began to take shape in 1995 when Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen, began scheduling interviews with Dylan's friends and associates. Among those interviewed were poet Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
and folk musician Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
, both of whom died before the film was completed. Dylan's old girlfriend Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
also granted a rare interview, and she later told Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
Magazine that she was very pleased with the project's results. Dylan himself also sat for ten hours in a relaxed and open conversation with Rosen in 2000.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, an unnamed source close to the project claimed that Dylan himself had no involvement with the project apart from the interview, saying that "[Dylan] has no interest in this . . . Bob truly does not look back." However, work on the first installment of Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. 1, did overlap production of the project, though it's unclear how much, if any, influence Chronicles may have had on No Direction Home.
Though raw material was being gathered for the project, Rosen needed someone to edit and shape it into a quality motion picture, and celebrated filmmaker Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
was approached to 'direct' the documentary planned from the project. Scorsese eventually agreed and came aboard in 2001.
In the meantime, Dylan's offices gathered hundreds of hours of historical film footage dating from the time covered in No Direction Home. These included a scratchy recording of Dylan's high school rock band, his 1965 screen test
Screen test
A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film and/or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a camera to see if they are suitable...
for Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, and newly-discovered footage of the famous Manchester Free Trade Hall
Free Trade Hall
The Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, was a public hall constructed in 1853–6 on St Peter's Fields, the site of the Peterloo Massacre and is now a hotel. The hall was built to commemorate the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The architect was Edward Walters The hall subsequently was...
concert from May 17, 1966, when an angry fan called out "Judas!"
Electric Dylan controversy
By 1965, Bob Dylan had achieved the status of leading songwriter of the American folk music revival.Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong...
just before Dylan and the Hawks performed "Like a Rolling Stone." Shot by D.A. Pennebaker, the onstage, color footage was found in 2004 in a pile of water-damaged film recovered from Dylan's vault.
Title
The title of the film takes its name from a lyric of the Dylan song, "Like a Rolling StoneLike a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
", on the Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
album.
Cover photo
The cover photo on the DVD package, by Barry Feinstein, shows Dylan standing in front of the Aust FerryAust Ferry
Aust Ferry or Beachley Ferry was a ferry service that operated across the River Severn between Aust and Beachley both in Gloucestershire, England. Before the Severn Bridge opened in 1966, it provided a daily service for road traffic crossing between the West Country and South Wales...
terminal in Gloucestershire, England, in May 1966, shortly before the opening of the Severn Bridge
Severn Bridge
The Severn Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the River Severn between South Gloucestershire, just north of Bristol, England, and Monmouthshire in South Wales, via Beachley, a peninsula between the River Severn and River Wye estuary. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and...
which replaced the ferry.
Reviews
The film received positive reviews from film critics, as review aggregate website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on 14 reviews. Critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film 4/4 stars, stating that it "creates a portrait that is deep, sympathetic, perceptive and yet finally leaves Dylan shrouded in mystery, which is where he properly lives".
Awards
The film received a Peabody AwardPeabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. , and Martin Scorsese received a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for directing for best long-form video.
Shelton biography
- No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, Robert Shelton, 1986, Da Capo Press reprint 2003, ISBN 0-306-81287-8
External links
- No Direction Home at bbc.co.ukBbc.co.ukBBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...
.