Main content

Martin Scorsese continues to explore Bob Dylan's early career. At 23, Dylan confounds expectations and finds a new musical vocabulary to capture the seismic cultural shift.

Martin Scorsese continues to explore the emotional, musical and intellectual journey of Bob Dylan's early career. The story turns dark. At 23, Dylan is already a newsworthy phenomenon and with that success comes expectations - from the old left to become a political activist, and from the media to articulate the concerns of America's youth. It's a role in which Dylan is completely uninterested. He is already on the move, finding a new musical vocabulary to capture the complexity of a seismic cultural shift. He injects a heightened sense of poetry into his writing and adds electricity to his music, electricity that now seems inevitable but at the time saw him labelled a sell-out and a traitor.

Scorsese delicately balances Dylan's internal world with signpost images from the external world. Dylan's music is the backdrop as the war in Vietnam escalates and the nightly news brings home images people would never have dreamed of seeing on their television sets. Scorsese takes the time to let viewers really see the music unfold in revelatory concert performances.

By 1966 Dylan's personal world has become one of constant touring and press conferences. By the end of the film it is plainly obvious that for Dylan there are some journeys from which there is No Direction ±«Óãtv.

4 months left to watch

1 hour, 30 minutes

Audio described

Last on

Sun 3 Dec 2023 01:35

More episodes

Next

You are at the last episode

See all episodes from Arena

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:01

    Brian Eno

    Another Green World

Credits

Role Contributor
Director Martin Scorsese
Participant Bob Dylan
Executive Producer Anthony Wall
Producer Jeff Rosen
Producer Susan Lacy
Producer Nigel Sinclair
Producer Anthony Wall
Producer Martin Scorsese

Broadcasts

Featured in...