Martin Scorsese is no stranger to Netflix (The Irishman, the current Pretend It’s a City) or Bob Dylan (The Last Waltz, No Direction Home). Scorsese’s 2019 Netflix original Rolling Thunder Revue is subtitled “A Bob Dylan Story” and it opens with a clip from early special effects pioneer Georges Méliès in which a woman is made to disappear. The subtext here seems to be: take the following with a fairly large grain of salt. In 1975-76, Dylan led a band of musicians (Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, violinist Scarlet Rivera, and others) and poets/writers (including Allen Ginsburg and Sam Shepard) on a merry tour, performing with masks and painted faces in small venues during a period when America’s bicentennial celebrations were underway—a time in some ways much like our own—as a corrupt politician (Nixon) was leaving office and the country entertained the hope that a brighter future was imminent.
Scorsese interweaves archival news, interviews, and behind-the-scenes clips together with electrifying concert footage from the tour (much shot for the fictional 1978 film featuring Dylan and Baez, Renaldo and Clara). As a title card at the beginning of the film states, this is a “conjuring” of this 20th-century commedia dell‘arte happening, one that decidedly draws outside the lines of verifiable fact. Dylan, of course, has always been an enigma, and here he professes to have forgotten everything about the tour, noting that it “happened so long ago that I wasn’t even born.”
But when prodded with further questioning, Dylan’s memories are stirred, recalling teenage fan Sharon Stone’s presence (Stone is on hand to flesh out this story and she is seen in a period photo with Dylan) and his being annoyed by filmmaker Stefan Van Dorp during the filming of the tour. Amusing anecdotes sure, although in all likelihood Stone’s face was Photoshopped and the truth here is that “Stefan Van Dorp” is a fictitious character played by Martin Von Haselberg (Bette Midler’s husband). Will audiences realize this? Many will not; younger viewers especially might not even recognize interviewee Rep. Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy in character from Robert Altman’s 1980s HBO-aired mockumentary series Tanner ’88).
But even if the narrative skeleton is comprised of both real bones and artificial implants, the whole serves as a vehicle for the meat of the film: the music. And those extended scenes feature Dylan at some of his musical and cinematic best on a handful of great tunes, including “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “One More Cup ofCoffee,” “Isis,” “Hurricane,” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” among others. And the moments interspersed with these rollicking performances are often just as magical: Dylan and others singing “Love Potion No. 9” on the tour RV; Joni Mitchell playing her new song “Coyote” while at Gordon Lightfoot’s house; Ginsberg reciting his poem “Kaddish” before a group of elderly women who are playing mahjong.
Ultimately, Rolling Thunder Revue is a film that will divide viewers—due to its “truthiness”—but is entirely in keeping with the Dylan mystique and offers a time-capsule portrait of America at an earlier crossroads. Beautifully restored from a workprint, extras include new interviews with Scorsese, editor David Tedeschi, and writer Larry “Ratso” Sloman, bonus performances (“Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You,” “Romance in Durango,” and “Tangled Up in Blue”), and a 58-page booklet featuring an essay by novelist Dana Spiotta and writings from Shepard, Ginsberg, and poet Anne Waldman. Highly recommended.