Yow! Ebert on Masked & Anonymous
Well, the first review of this thing is in, and it (both the review and it sounds like the movie) are about what I feared they'd be. Check it out in rec.music.dylan. Ebert's writing is great:
It's a work, all right, but progress eludes it...Masked and Anonymous" can be described as homage, if you are a Dylan fan, or idolatry, if you are not. His character is treated by all the others as an awesome legend. He occupies his scenes like a judge, gazing at the others as if measuring their worthiness to share the frame with him.
How is Dylan as an actor? It is impossible to tell, because he never has dialogue that is more than one sentence in length, never engages in actual conversation with any of the others, and looks enigmatic and/or ridiculous in a second braided and buttoned Michael Jackson castoff and an oversize cow boy hat. A similar costume might be appropriate for the band members at an impoverished southwestern high school. Charles uses an unvarying strategy to shoot Dylan: Let Goodman, for example, fulminate and expostulate; cut to Dylan; Dylan utters enigmatic one-liner; cut away. Occasionally this format is interrupted by Dylan dead-panning a song, and the songs are indeed good to hear, although it is a little puzzling why he thinks a revolutionary war zone in the Third World needs to hear "Dixie."
And if you want to see something really frightening, check out this picture of our boy at the Sundance premier. Or this one; at least here Jessica Lange isn't trying to look like a spook, though you can see the Bob influence is a little to heavy on Larry Charles' shoulders.
What is it with this guy anyway? His performing skills are nearly as spot on as ever, he's really compelling in concert,and is songwriting is, if not what it has been, is at least very interesting and sometimes brilliant. But when you put him in public, or when he strays, he just goes off the deep end. Paul Williams comented years ago, something to the effect that when he was writing Tarantula, Bob was straying from what he knew. The same techniques that worked brilliantly on record album jackets didn't work at book length. I think there's a lot to that. And also, in a 3 or 8 minute song, questions and problems of Dylan's identity are fascinating and transend this person; in a movie the burden is too great.
One wonders now: will this thing ever be released?
3:58:53 PM Permalink
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