I’m Not There (2007): Re-interpreting Dylan

I’m Not There is an unconventional journey into the life and times of Bob Dylan. Six actors portray Dylan as a series of shifting personae – from the public to the private to the fantastical – weaving together a rich and colourful portrait of this ever-elusive American icon.  

(taken from I’m Not There – the official website, as a tagline)

I’m Not There is a biographical film reflecting the life of musician Bob Dylan. It depicts the iconic singer-songwriter through seven distinct stages of his life by using six different actors (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett). It was co-written and directed by Todd Haynes.

The film has received a lot of press for telling its story using rather non-traditional techniques, much like the poetic narrative style utilized in Dylan’s songwriting. “The film is going to be inspired by Dylan’s music and his ability to re-create and re-imagine himself time and time again,” according to key producer, Christine Vachon.

The title I’m Not There is a reference to the Dylan outtake recorded during The Basement Tapes (Sessions). It was not included in the studio album The Basement Tapes and, for years, could only be found on the CD bootleg set The Genuine Basement Tapes and the later remastered version (still considered a bootleg) of that set A Tree With Roots. I’m Not There is one of the most famous and highly regarded outtakes, not just of the Basement Tapes, but of Dylan’s whole career. It was never officially released until it appeared on the film’s official soundtrack album.

The production began filming in late July 2006 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It premiered at the 34th Telluride Film Festival on August 31st and won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actress honors for Blanchett at the 64th Venice Film Festival. It opened in theaters in Italy on September 7, 2007. It was also part of the Toronto International Film Festival and played on September 14, 2007.

The film opened in limited release in the United States on November 21, 2007. 

If you’re looking for an autobiographical film which tells a true life story or sort of this kind, you should not watch this movie. This one is unique, like one review that I read at IMDB. It is a “A film biography that’s complex, like its subject” (by Chris Knipp, 03 Nov 2007). It is complex since it really represent Dylan’s characters which for some may disturbed or felt uneasy by his statement and his music. Therefore, you may find that I’m Not There potrays six characters who resembled Dylan’s characters in different times. However, at the same time, by looking to these people, you may find they can be separated as different people who independently stood as themselves. Not one of them name as Dylan, or Robert Zimmerman, his real name. Their names, status and proffesions are varied. Their stories collide and entwine, adding up to an experience that is as fascinating and inexhaustible as listening to “Blood on the Tracks” or “The Basement Tapes.” 

Devotees of Dylan lore will find their heads swimming with footnotes, as they track Haynes’s allusions not only to Dylan’s own music but also to the extensive secondary literature it has inspired, from books by David Hajdu and Greil Marcus to films, including D. A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary, “Don’t Look Back,” some of which Haynes remakes shot for shot. And if you don’t understand or know Dylan at all, you may find this movie a puzzle and complex story which let you leave the theater with headaches. But, … with those mixture that Haynes just made to his film, maybe some of you may enjoyed it as a good movie, which is smart, outspoken and leave you to think a lot about what you had seen in it.

I’m not good at making a film critic, but I just read one that I think you should conssidered to read: ‘I’m Not There:’ The multiple faces of Bob Dylan, reinvented, written by A.O. Scott, who also made a good review for Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. The Article was published on November 22, 2007 at International Heral Tribune, culture column.  

by the way, … there is an interesting article from a “not-so-late” archive at Tablet which related to: how catholics should see and consider Dylan with his outspoken words and musics. The article was written by Bill McGarvey, with title: “Don’t think twice, he’s all right” (The Tablet – 17 March 2007). Read it … it’s good, McGarvey told us that Dylan actually proclaimed the same concern with the Church who see the world in “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age … these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.” (Gaudium et Spes)

also check these links:

official website

I’m Not There at IMDB

for more information about Bob Dylan:

Bob Dylan at Wikipedia

the official website of Bob Dylan at Columbia Records

Love will decide

Reflection for Monday Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time – 19 November 2007

Readings: 1Mc 1: 10-15, 41-43, 54-57, 62-63; Ps 119; Lk. 18:35-43

Nothing is more practical than finding God,

that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way,

what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what do you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends,

what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

 

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.  

(Pedro Arrupe)

Certainly we agree that to life is to make choices. As human beings, we are surrounded by a large numbers of options. We have to make decision from things that very simple, like: a colour for your clothes, foods that you like to eat, books or movies that you want to read and watch; to things that very complicated or serious which will effect your entire life, like option to ask your love one to marry, or work harder and harder in order to pursue the career you wanted.  

            As we notice from the examples that I gave you, we know that we cannot grab all choices that we want. Very often when we decide something we have to give up other things as a return. Sometimes it is really easy to find what to choose since we know for sure about things that fit ourselves, but in some critical options, we do not have an easy task to decide since we often confused about what best that we have to choose. They require more from us. At the crossroad, we find pressures and domination from others, which brought us to tension and conflicts within our souls and our selves. Seldom we also have to face risks and dangers which ask ourselves to sacrifice our own life.

The reading from the Maccabees that we hear today does not only describe the struggle that the Jewish should faced during the most heroic times of their history, but also it reflect struggle that we, Christian have to face in order to be a true disciple of Christ. At that time, the Jewish people was divided by hellenization, which brought there along with Greek domination over Palestine. Some were willing to adapt to even adopt certain Greek costums, while others resisted. History made us knew who were made true choices. The sacrifice from those who refused to follow the Greek culture had known to be heroes of their faith and holy covenant. They chose God’s rather than obeyed to Greek rulers. However, if we put ourselves to those times, I think that we might agreed the choices they had were not as clear as we heard today from the reading.

These days, we faced the same problems like the Maccabees. There are people out there that were not really sure when they had to choose between God and wealth. Very often the choices that we have were not as easy as we learned from schools. Corruptions, business manipulations, law malpractices, political games, and false prophecies in religion are only some examples which illustrate the world we live today is a very confusing world.

            Still, we must make choices. But, the way we chose certainly does not as same as the world had chose. In the Gospel, we find an example. The blind beggar exactly knew whom he should follow. He ask Jesus what he wanted and he knew from that moment his request also require option that he willing to take, to follow him to Jerusalem. One thing that made him followed Jesus, he just falling in love at once to the Lord.

Who Are the Saints?

Gospel Commentary for the Feast of All Saints’ Day

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

Taken from Article on Zenit.org

ROME, OCT. 31, 2007 (Zenit.org).- For some time now, scientists have been sending signals into the cosmos, hoping for a response from some intelligent being on some lost planet. The Church has always maintained a dialogue with the inhabitants of another world — the saints. That is what we proclaim when we say, “I believe in the communion of the saints.” Even if inhabitants outside of the solar system existed, communication with them would be impossible, because between the question and the answer, millions of years would pass. Here, though, the answer is immediate because there is a common center of communication and encounter, and that is the risen Christ.

Perhaps in part because of the time of the year in which it falls, the feast of All Saints’ Day has something special that explains its popularity and the many traditions linked to it in some sectors of Christianity. The motive is what John says in the second reading. In this life, “we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.” We are like the embryo in the womb of a mother yearning to be born. The saints have been “born” (the liturgy refers to the day of death as “the day of birth,” “dies natalis.”) To contemplate the saints is to contemplate our destiny. All around us, nature strips itself and the leaves fall, but meanwhile, the feast of the saints invites us to gaze on high; it reminds us that we are not destined to wither on this earth forever, like the leaves.

The Gospel reading is the beatitudes. One in particular inspires the selection of this passage: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, they shall be satisfied.” The saints are those who have hungered and thirsted for justice, that is, in biblical language, for sanctity. They have not resigned themselves to mediocrity; they have not been content with half-measures.

The first reading of the feast helps us to understand who the saints are. They are “those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.” Sanctity is received from Christ; it is not our own production. In the Old Testament, to be a saint meant “to be separated” from all that is impure; in the Christian understanding, it is, rather, the opposite, that is, to “be united” to Christ.

The saints, that is, the saved, are not only those mentioned in the calendar or the book of the saints. The “unknown saints” also exist: those who risked their lives for their brothers, the martyrs of justice and liberty, or of duty, the “lay saints,” as someone has called them. Without knowing it, their robes have also been washed in the blood of the Lamb, if they have lived according to their consciences and if they have been concerned with the good of their brothers.

A question spontaneously arises: What do the saints do in heaven? The answer is, also here, in the first reading: The saved adore, they prostrate themselves before the throne, exclaiming, “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving …” The true human vocation is fulfilled in them, that of being “praise to the glory of God” (Ephesians 1:14). Their choir is directed by Mary, who continues her hymn of praise in heaven, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” It is in this praise that the saints find their happiness and joy. “My spirit rejoices in God.” A man is who he loves and who he admires. Loving and praising God, we identify ourselves with God, participate in his glory and in his own happiness.

One day, a saint, St. Symeon the New Theologian, had a mystical experience of God that was so strong he exclaimed to himself, “If paradise is no more than this, it is enough for me.” But the voice of Christ told him, “You are very poor if you content yourself with this. The joy you have experienced in comparison to paradise is like the sky painted on paper in comparison to the real sky.”

—————–

[Translation by ZENIT]

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for the feast of All Saints are Revelation 7:2-4,9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Mathew 5:1-12a.

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