Masked and Anonymous

Yes, the dialogue was unrealistic and heavy-handed. Yes, the conversations were often one-sided. Yes, it was preachy at times. And yes, there is something caught in Bob Dylan's throat. I feel fortunate not to have read any of the reviews of this film before I saw it, because otherwise my experience may have been tainted. I lost myself in this movie. In it's poetry. It's power. The music, alone! I found it moving, compelling, and beautiful. I'm not saying everyone is wrong who gave it a bad review. In fact, a lot of the points they made are very valid. I just think that the points they made make a stronger case for why the movie is good, not why it is bad. It's not a blockbuster, it's not an action flick, it's not a chick-flick or a romantic-comedy. It's not really like anything. The only movie I know of to compare it to, other than maybe an Ingmar Bergman film, is "Big Bad Love", with Arliss Howard. Now THERE is a slow, sparse, pretentious and indulgent film. But it works. It's poetry. It's not reality, and neither is "Masked & Anonymous". In fact, the filmmakers go a long way to make sure you know it isn't reality--or at least any particular reality. It's an allegory. It's a metaphor. Just look at the scene where Jessica Lange hears the news report on the radio saying that scientists dug the deepest hole in the world and heard the wailing of thousands of lost souls. If you think that's not supposed to be poetry right there, then you have got the wrong notion about the film as a whole. I encourage you to take another look at it from another perspective and see if your opinion changes. If it doesn't, there's nothing wrong with that, but at least you will have given it a chance.

There was a time when music mattered, and the people that made that music mattered too. Bob Dylan was one of those people. Dylan has floated in and out of the public eye over the years, but has made somewhat of a return with the release of his 2001 album Love and Theft. He has tried to increase his current comeback, and extend his hand into another form of art, by written and staring in a new film.

Masked and Anonymous is good no matter what your opinion of Bob Dylan may be. For Dylan fans this is a tour de force of film making. Written like a Dylan epic tune, think Desolation Row, Masked stays just out of reach of the explainable. Coupled with great cameos, Val Kilmer is far and away the best of many, Masked delivers. John Goodman and Jeff Bridges hold supply the majority of the nessecary acting with Luke Wilson helping out on occasion. However this is the Wilson of Old School, and a far cry from the Wilson of the Royla Tennebaums. None of that really matters, however, because this film was made for Bob Dylan, and he is the single most important character on screen.

In Jack Fate Dylan has created a chracter that personifies his style. Fate, an aging rock star returning home for a benefit concert, symbolizes what h as become of Dylan's career as a musician. Masked isn't really the story of Bob Dylan's life, no more then any of his songs are, it can be, however, his response to what his life has been like. The story itself lacks a little and the characters are never fully defined, but like the supporting acting none of that matters. The important part of Masked and Anonymous, and the only reason it was ever made, is Bob Dylan. Taken that way, Masked and Anonymous is a truly excellent, and original, piece of film.

I had read so many bad reviews of this movie. I'd read it was impossible to follow; I'd read that the dialogue was banal; Roger Ebert gave it half a star, claiming it was too ambiguous. So, when I saw Masked & Anonymous, I was prepared for the worse.

Instead, as soon as the movie began, and that Spanish Version of My Back Pages started playing to bomb explosions and imagery of a future gone wrong, I realize: I'm going to like this movie.

First, the plot, far too incredible to really explain here (And it sort of depends on your point of view anyways) is very creative in that it conveys an incredible amount of symbolism. On one hand, this is a movie that mocks rock music (Think of the scene where Uncle Sweetheart tells Fate "You're gonna play rock and roll get rich launch your career and bring world peace all at the same time!") On the other hand, this could be Dylan's way of telling us who he really is. "Maybe I'm just a singer and nothing more" he tells us. He's tired of being made to be a counter cultural liberal protester. He's tired of people who think he only writes anti-war songs. Think of the scene where a woman brings her daughter to see Dylan. When Dylan learns that the little girl knows all his lyrics he asks "What'd she do that for?" And the mother quickly responds "Because I made her." This movie is about so many things: You just have to see it and every time you see it again you'll see more.

Concerning the dialogue. Many people say the dialogue is contrived, banal, or mindlessly poetic. To such people I reccomend they read Shakespeare (He's in the alley). Dylan has been hailed as a modern Shakespeare, so it is not wonder that this movie has the same beautiful poetry that his songs do.

But I will grant this: Bad actors would never be able to pull off this script. And this was probably the movie's strongest feature: Incredible acting. John Goodman deserves an Emmy for his portrayal of the scheming Uncle Sweetheart. Val Kilmer shocked me with his ability to portray the crazed Animal Wrangler. Jessica Lange gave the best performance of her career. The list goes on... Mickey Rourke, Ed Harris, Christian Slater, all surprised me with brilliant acting.

If you have the chance to see this movie, just once, do so. And forgive its few shortcomings-- it was made on short notice, and its messages were meant to transcend all imperfections for movie rookie director Larry Charles. This movie will probably be forgotten one day, which is unfortunate, because rarely is a movie this original.

This movie will mean little to you if you aren't my age (late fifties). That's because you actually had to be there when Bob Dylan was the most powerful man in the west, exchanging leadership with the merged Lennon and McCartney. Together they led us like no one had or has since in terms of immediacy.

I'm talking about the period between his protest singing and his collapse into fundamentalism. From "Tambourine Man," to "Twist of Fate," with the John Wesley Harding period being his most profound. His method was simple, to let himself go and trust what he saw on the edges of his vision. It wasn't that he engineered himself to be at the front of us. Instead he advertised a small bit of conceptual thinking for the pop mind and we grew into it, in his direction almost as if by accident.

The point is that he was important, but never knew why. His insights and art were far more intelligent than he was. And when he fell into the fundamentalist stupor it probably seemed like a reinvention following all the others.

This business of not knowing is crucial to whether you should actually listen to him when he tries to say something.

So go and watch "Renaldo and Clara" which he co-wrote with one of our two greatest living playwrights. It has a grand shape, multiple people playing the same character; multiple characters played by the same person. Scintillating realities, shifting fundamentals. That's the Sam Shepard part. The Dylan part is so juvenile, so obtuse, so plain artless it carries its own message.

And that's what we have here too. Except this time, the grand shape is by a cartoon writer instead of a master playwright. So we start with vapid notions of profundity. This writer believes that Dylan is still the man most thought he was 25 years ago. Even that was wrong: he simply saw rather than understood even then.

Well, so we have this vast stroke of fate, Jake Fate (Twist of Fate, see?), this notion of the son of a broken God (John Wesley Harding, get it? nudge, nudge) and along the way scads of characters drawn to illustrate the various ways mankind has broken itself.

The good news is that many of these are played by first rate actors. Sam Shephard's wife has the role of "presenter." But they are drawn so cartoonishly they miss any target they could have hit. They are not cinematic. This guy has no cinematic skills. They are not Dylanesque. Dylan has a very specific and consistent imagination that is more "Hitchhiker's Guide" than "Seinfeld" and "The Tick."

We could have gotten an ensemble piece where talented actors synthesized their impressions of Dylan. Now that would have been cool, but they are kept separate.

So what we end up with is a lost soul who once was king, playing a lost soul who once was king, tries to recover — thinks he succeeds, fails miserably in front of our eyes and doesn't know it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Sure, Masked and Anonymous (or M&A, as I fondly like to call it) is convoluted and pretentious. Sure, it has ridiculously banal dialogue that makes Forrest Gump sound like an intellectual. Sure, there are preposterously-named characters (Jack Fate, Tom Friend, Uncle Sweetheart, et al) and let's face it, no one actually has a coherent conversation throughout the entire proceeding. But it's not predictable - that counts for something in my book, anyway, and it has Bob Dylan (looking more and more like Salvador Dali in every scene - all he needed was the mustache wax), and Jeff Bridges always rocks. Here's the bottom line for me, though: any film that has a bearded, bare-armed and derangedly disheveled Val Kilmer deliver the title phrase (while fondling a bunny rabbit) can't be all bad.