No Direction Home
November 2005 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

No Direction Home could be subtitled "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." It follows Bob Dylan from his roots in Hibbing, Minnesota, through his artistically formative time in Greenwich Village, to his rise to stardom in the mid 1960s -- roughly from adolescence through the release of Highway 61 Revisited. During this time, Robert Zimmerman transformed himself into Bob Dylan, learned to play guitar, began to write songs, became obsessed with Woody Guthrie, was considered the voice of his generation, turned from folk to pop music, was cheered and jeered. Through it all, he remained true to his belief that "an artist is always in a state of becoming." He was enigmatic to the press and mercurial to his fans and intimates, but a songwriter and performer in constant motion first and foremost.

The movie intersperses period performance clips and video shot back stage and during press conferences with contemporary footage in which performers who know Dylan talk about recording sessions, tours and songs. The portrait of the artist that all of this relates is of a singer and songwriter whose work happened to "tap into America's collective unconscious," as Dave Van Ronk put it, not someone who tried to write important songs or sought fame and adulation. "Reaching the audience is what it's about," Dylan says shyly, and the many performances in the film prove that he was incapable of phoning it in, even as he was being booed for going electric.

As one would expect, the two-DVD set includes some important live performances, including full-length versions of some songs included in the documentary. There is also a promo spot for "Positively 4th Street" that is tame compared to the way music is promoted today. The picture and sound quality vary according to the source material, but are always at least adequate.

Director Martin Scorsese, whose films have shown a keen use of music and a fascination with larger-than-life characters, found the very best narrator for his movie -- Dylan, who is earnest and reflective, almost as though he's talking about someone other than himself. In this day of exhaustive biographies and multi-part documentaries, some may wonder why Scorsese would devote his film to covering Dylan only up to 1966. It was during this period that the Bob Dylan we know came to be. Tours and albums would come and go afterwards, but none would be more important than the collective events of the 1960s. Watching No Direction Home is like watching a mountain range form in three and a half hours.

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