The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival

For any Bob Dylan fan this is a must. One gets to see his progression from the new darling of the folk scene (elevated to the point of ultimate pretension by the line "He has his finger on the pulse of a generation") to breaking out the electric guitar for Maggie's Farm in 1965. It definitely helps to know what the circumstances were with Dylan's presence at the Newport Folk Festival over those three years when watching the film; if you go into it expecting the director Murray Lerner to spoon-feed multitudes of facts then you're bound to be let down. Only Joan Baez has a scene with some comments on Bob Dylan at the festival - the rest is just concert footage, with some sporadic bits for the announcer and shots and sounds of the audience or Dylan in a car surrounded by fans.

As for the songs themselves, they are what they are: it's Dylan in both his prime as a strong storyteller and folk singer and as a burgeoning rock star that got a lot of "pure" fans very angry. The argument can be made both ways with 1965: taken out of context the performance of Maggie's Farm is one of the most highly charged live rock songs ever recorded, taken in context it wasn't exactly the right time with such a picky crowd. It took guts on Dylan's end though, which is something that does come through consistently in the documentary. I mean this by what he sings about: his range is incredible when it comes to writing lyrics and relaying his stories and ideas, from Medgar Evers to his World War 3 Dream to Blowin' in the Wind, and then on to something traditional but powerful like Chimes of Freedom... leading all the way up to what many consider his masterpiece, Like a Rolling Stone. If nothing else, the performances are essential, even if the film overall works better alongside Scorsese's No Direction Home, which is, of course, the definitive Dylan doc.

Featuring previously unseen footage, Murray Lerner's film is footage of performances by Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Kestival but it also charts the change in his status in the years covered by the film. I think that those with a greater understanding of the man's career than I do will appreciate seeing this time period represented by a series of performances but even for the casual Dylan listener such as myself this is a very worthwhile film.

Despite including such people as Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash, this film is almost entirely Dylan performing live and it is effortlessly enjoyable and rewarding to get such access, particularly since I was not even born at that time. The footage is really good throughout even though for many of the performances it is just one or two static cameras focusing on Dylan from the front or side. At other times though the camera moves round crowded stages or gets good audience shots and it is all edited together really well. I'm not sure if I have any reason to be, but I was quite surprised by the high quality of the film and the sound – the black & white footage is crisp and sharp and the sound is as clear as standing next to him.

The performances are as good as recorded and I think even those who only have the "best of" in their collection will enjoy it, but there is more than just the music. My favourite parts involve interacting with the audience or the powerless frustration of the MC trying to calm a crowd chanting "we want more", while the moment Dylan appeals to the audience to throw up a harmonica as he is lacking his own, then proceeds to play it like it was part of him was to me just all the more justification of his "man of the people" personae.

Overall then a very enjoyable collection of live performances that are not only good because of the quality of Dylan but also because of the high quality of the black & white film stock and the sound.

I cannot believe that this film has only 82 votes and 3 comments! This is an amazing concert film. If you're frustrated with all the music movies where you only get to hear 30 seconds to a minute of each song, this is the film for you. There is no fancy camera work, no distracting lighting, no peripatetic moving the camera from place to place, like we'll be bored if we just see the singer singing the song. Much of the time you see Dylan's face in close up, as if you were sitting on stage. And every song he sings you hear from the opening to closing chords. It's a special treat to see the young Johnny Cash, but he's not the focus of this film, so we only see part of a song. Same for Joan Baez. Other than that, no other performers than Dylan.

There are no interviews, no crowd closeups, no explanation of anything. The performances just speak for themselves in a way you probably haven't seen before, even if you've seen all the other Dylan films. You might even hear a song or two you haven't heard before, and you get not one but two complete performances of Mr. Tambourine Man. The change in Dylan's appearance, voice, and music in the course of just three years is amazing, and seeing it without commentary just seems "right" to me. You don't always need to hear someone explain what you can see for yourself.

The sound and picture, while black and white, is amazingly high quality, even without considering the era from which it was all recorded.

The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival (2007) is a compilation for TV from Murray Lerner's extensive filming at Newport in the early Sixties, It was a sidebar at the 2007 New York Film Festival and is being shown in some theaters; it's already available on DVD.

The more you look back at the Bob Dylan of 1963, 1964, and 1965, the more clear it is that he was a wunderkind, a singer-songwriter at 23, 24, and 25 of genius proportions. The songs just poured out of him with breathtaking speed, and more often than not they were brilliant and powerful. You don't get to see that very often in a lifetime, or in an age. He also revealed ever-increasing authority as a performer capable of delivering his work better than anybody else, though others, including Joan Baez and Johnny Cash in these films, were going to pay homage by delivering their own versions.

This seems to be Dylan time. Again and again recently there is an important new look at the man. No look is more concentrated and unadulterated than the one Lerner provides us with here. No narration or analysis gets in the way. It's just Dylan on stage.

The final moment is a key one in modern American pop music history (one described and shown in Scorsese's terrific documentary from 2005, No Direction Home): the historic booed electric band performance. When Dylan sings "Maggie's Farm," he's transforming his protest songs about worker independence into a declaration of his own freedom from the folkie tradition:

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more./ No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. /Well, I try my best To be just like I am, /But everybody wants you To be just like them. /They sing while you slave and I just get bored. /I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

He also performs with the electric rock band "Like a Rolling Stone," another declaration of being free-standing and independent, burning his bridges:

How does it feel /How does it feel /To be on your own /With no direction home /Like a complete unknown /Like a rolling stone?

They boo him but they applaud him too. Dylan was already a rock star --because the audience was beginning to treat him like one--when he was performing in skinny jeans and a plain short-sleeved shirt with hair combed to one side in 1963, as this film begins, with "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger standing admiring in the background. But this was just one step on the way. Dylan was into style, he liked leather, and he loved performing. It was essential that he would have a band, a rock band (this is before The Band, with Robbie Robertson, however). In 1965 after the booing that follows the electric band performance, they still want him back, and he comes out with an acoustic guitar and asks for anybody to throw up "E" harmonicas on the stage. He grabs one off the floor, fits it in the holder, and performs "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Baby Blue." This moment says that he hasn't forgotten the past. Though he speaks ironically in the car speeding away, fitting on the dark glasses, when he says of the hordes beating on the back "those are my friends," he nonetheless recognizes with that ironic remark the power the public has and the responsibility he is going to have to it.

To see this film after recently watching Todd Haynes' I'm Not There is particularly cool, because all the big transitions and facets in it are jammed together in far more subtle and yet concentrated form here. Haynes' movie is like a training film, going through the motions slowly and emphatically so we can distinguish them and get them straight. Here in the three years of the Newport Festival all the Dylans are there but you have to watch closely. They're there. There are also Johnney and Joanie. And Joanie coming up to sing with Bobbie more than once. Bobbie and Joanie don't really sing together very well, though--they seem at odds with each other--it's an indication of their relationship, affectionate but uneasy., eventually to be a casualty of Dylan's mercurial stylistic evolutions.

Joanie was in love with Bobbie and you can see why. He has the special sex appeal of intelligence, talent, and edge, and those beautiful deer eyes, those sharp features--the whole iconic face but in its freshest, most cherubic form. It's hard not to love it. I'm in love with him myself, as he was then. He was everything I ever wanted to be: creative, cool, lovable, ruthlessly independent, sexy, brilliant, and inapproachable but appealing. He had it all, and this film shows that.

Indespensable.

Seen at Cinema Village, NYC, December 18, 2007.

Other Side of the Mirror, The: Bob Dylan at Newport (2007)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Murray Lerner (Festival) 'directs' this documentary that covers the 1963-65 Newport Music Festival performances by Bob Dylan. There's no question that these concerts are a put of music history but I must admit that I'm disappointed by this film because it's only the concert footage without any new interviews or anything like that. Even a few of the concerts songs are edited so I'm really not sure what the point of this thing was. There are countless documents of these events including the recent Martin Scorsese film so why this release was needed isn't known. The performances by Dylan are all very good, although I think all three are a tad bit overrated. The film does offer some shots that I haven't seen before but everything else has been available for decades.