This epic is a mass amalgamation of three separate film-types that is, contrary to popular opinion, coherent and a unified whole. Bob Dylan is shown in concert, often masked, during the Rolling Thunder Revue. The film also features documentary footage, including Ruben 'Hurricane' Carter's struggle against the forces that have imprisoned him. The third element is fictional 'role-playing' footage with Bob Dylan in the guise of guitar-strumming Renaldo and his wife Sara as his companion Clara. Ronnie Hawkins takes on the role of Bob Dylan in these sequences.
The film includes footage of a visit to the grave of Jack Kerouac, an Allen Ginsberg poetry reading and various friends and acquaintances, namely David Blue (playing pinball by a swimming pool), discussing experiences on the road. At over four hours and consisting of a lot of improvised and apparently self-referential scenes, this could and indeed has irritated many viewers. But if one stays with it and takes it as it comes (Dylan himself has recommended that one watches it doped), the film is an extraordinary meditation on the nature of self, performance, show biz and life.
At its heart, the film seems to me to be saying that everything is show business (love, politics, poetry) or perhaps that show business (represented by a cheesy club act) is as valid a life choice as any of the more profound things portrayed. For all his supposedly radical support for Rubin Carter, the film suggests that the boxer is just as much a performer as anyone else.
The film contains some moving sequences, not least the wonderful one in which Alan Ginsberg performs Kaddish before a group of oldsters. And not least, the concert footage of Dylan is magnificent - Isis being a stand-out.
Which brings me back to the movie's theme: here is a performer whose name is not really Bob Dylan playing a performer who is called Renaldo performing a song about marriage but not marriage to his wife Sara (who plays Clara in the film) but marriage to the ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis - which implies that the singer really is Osiris, God of the underworld. But it's just this kid Robert Zimmerman! What is the real truth? This is the sort of heady trip the film offers. Put up with the irritating self-indulgence of much of this,and the enormous length, and there are great rewards. Re-issue it, Bob!
Published: January 26, 1978 THERE'S an insolence about 'Renaldo and Clara,' the four-hour film written and directed by Bob Dylan and featuring members of his Rolling Thunder Revue, that is not easily ignored. Dylan, who has a way of insinuating that any viewer who doesn't grasp the full richness of his work must be intellectually deficient or guilty of some failure of nerve, has seen fit to produce a film that no one is likely to find altogether comprehensible.
Yet for anyone even marginally interested in Mr. Dylan—and for anyone willing to accept the idea that his evasiveness, however exasperating, is a crucial aspect of his finest work — 'Renaldo and Clara' holds the attention at least as effectively as it tries the patience. No knowledge of Mr. Dylan or his history is supposed to be central to an understanding of the film, but it nevertheless trades heavily upon his past. The singer David Blue, playing himself, talks about the artistic climate of Greenwich Village when Mr. Dylan first arrived there, and Joan Baez is rather coyly cast as Mr.
Dylan's former lover. Dylan, even more coyly, is cast as someone other than himself, a very vague figure named Renaldo. As an actor, Mr. Dylan specializes in giving the simultaneous impressions that he isn't really interested in acting, and that he is always acting anyway.
Renaldo is thus virtually useless as a character, but his alleged presence in the film does help call attention to Mr. Dylan's obsessive camouflaging of his feelings, a tendency that produces the film's only intelligible conceit.
There are only two central characters in the film, a man and a woman, yet their identities are splintered and then parceled out to a dozen different actors. The woman is most frequently played by Sara Dylan, who is now Mr.
Dylan's ex-wife, but aspects of her can also be seen in Miss Baez, Ronee Blakley and Helena Kallianiotes. Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins and Rob Stoner are among the actors who stand in for the man. The two lovers, apparently about to become ex-lovers, are irremediably locked in battle, but the device of fluctuating identities prevents them from ever confronting each other face to face. Ps2 bios pcsx2 0.9 8. This technique, not unlike one used by Robert Altman in 'Images,' is potentially an intriguing one, but Mr. Dylan's love of mystery prevails over his exhibitionism, with disappointing results. Most of the actors here seem to be playing either Mr.
Dylan, and all of them slavishly do the director's bidding. Dylan's instructiveness, to his actors and to his audience, is incomplete. 'Renaldo and Clara' is so personal it borders on being obscure, yet it remains surprisingly deficient in personality. The figure who dominates the film is a man in hiding.
Dylan has always been elusive; that's no mean part of his charm. But his best work, like the 'Blood on the Tracks' album released a couple of years ago, has derived its momentum from alternating currents of passion and restraint, from conflicting impulses to repress and to reveal. 'Renaldo and Clara' addresses this apparent contradiction so passively, even cold-bloodedly, that it seldom has the urgency it needs. The film is full of connections to be made and riddles to be solved, but it approaches these things so dispassionately that the viewer has little choice but to follow suit. Even though Mr. Dylan makes it clear that he in no way wanted to make a concert film, the footage of him in performance provides not only the film's most electrifying moments but also its most emblematic ones. On the Rolling Thunder tour, Mr.
Dylan performed in whiteface, and he is photographed here in tight closeup, singing so ferociously that his sweat melts the makeup; the film's sense of a person at war with a mask is never more riveting than when the camera studies Mr. Dylan's face as he sings. Every detail of these shots is resonant, from the fiery look in Mr. Dylan's eyes to the fresh flowers that someone has apparently been hired to tuck into his hatbrim, just before each show. The film contains more than its share of dead weight, but it is seldom genuinely dull. On the credit side, there are a great many isolated images that have an independent vitality, from the sight of Joan Baez, looking unexpectedly dreamy in a white gown, to the spectacle of Allen Ginsberg, introduced as 'without a doubt a very interesting and clever personality,' reading his poetry to a bewildered band of middle-aged ladies. It's a pity that the editing of the film, which is credited to Mr.
Dylan and Howard Alk, pays so little heed to consistency. Following a pattern of linear thought is clearly not one of the film's concerns, but maintaining a constant degree of intensity should have been; this way, by carelessly commingling very complex and suggestive episodes with very flat and simple ones, the editing continually throws an already befuddled viewer even further off balance.
Interludes like the culminating meeting of Mr. Dylan and Miss Baez, at once quite rarefied and in an atmosphere that is amusingly mundane, and an exceedingly one-note segment devoted to Hurricane Carter, are so incompatible that they simply don't belong in the same movie.
Rolling Thunder RENALDO AND CLARA, directed and written by Bob Dylan; edited by Mr. Dylan and Howard Alk; photography by David Myers, Paul Goldsmith, Mr. Alk and Michael Levine; music by Mr. Dylan, Ronee Blakley, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn and Jacques Levy, Allen Ginsberg and others; produced by Lombard Street Films; distributed by Circuit Films: At The Festival, 57th Street at Fifth Aveune; The New Yorker, Broadway and 88th Street and The Waverly, Third Street and Sixth Avenue, Theaters. Running time: 292 minutes. This film is rated R. Bob Dylan Clara.
Sara Dylan The Woman In White. Joan Baez Bob Dylan.
Ronnie Hawkins Mrs. Ronee Blakley Longheno de Castro. Jack Elliott Lafkezio. Harry Dean Stanton The Masked Tortilla. Bob Neuwirth Helena.
Helena Kallianiotes The Father. Allen Ginsberg David Blue. David Blue Roger McGuinn.
Roger McGuinn Security Guard. Mick Ronson Sister of Mercy. Anne Waldman.
Running time 232 minutes Country United States Language English Renaldo and Clara is a 1978 American film directed by and starring Bob Dylan, and. Written by Dylan and, the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life. Filmed in the fall of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's tour, the film features appearances and performances by, Sam Shepard, and. Renaldo and Clara was released in its original four-hour form on January 25, 1978 in the United States. Its limited release in theaters in New York City, Los Angeles, and other cities was discontinued after a few weeks following widespread negative reviews. Renaldo and Clara won the Interfilm Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1978 but has largely been panned by critics.
Contents. Production Renaldo and Clara was written by and. Most of the performers are musicians or members of Dylan's inner circle; the only professional actors in the cast are Sam Shepard, and. The style, structure, and thematic elements of Renaldo and Clara were heavily influenced by the French film. Similarities between the two films include the use of whiteface (Dylan), the recurring flower, the woman in white (Baez), the on-stage and backstage scenes, and the dialogue of both films' climactic scenes. Also evident is the approach of the two films, allowing us to see the main characters from the different perspectives of various lovers.
Renaldo And Clara Dvd
Running time is also relatively similar. Many of the artists performing with the are featured in the film, which also includes clips of concert performances and footage of, the subject of Dylan's song '.
The film also contains the last known footage of, who is shown preparing to take the stage at Folk City in October 1975; he committed suicide six months later. The film also features an appearance from another ill-fated musician, who gives some insight into the 1960s New York City folk music scene while playing an extended game of. as Renaldo.
as Clara. as Woman in White. as Bob Dylan.
as Mrs. Dylan. as Longheno de Castro. as Lafkezio. as The Masked Tortilla. Mel Howard as Ungatz. as The Father.
as The Son. Jack Baran as The Truck Driver. as Herself.
as Himself. as Herself.
Mama Maria Frasca as Herself. Mad Bear as Himself. as Himself. as Himself. as Herself.
as Himself. Ruth Tyrangel as Herself. as Himself. as Security Guard.
as Sister of Mercy. Denise Mercedes as Herself. Linda Thomases as Herself. as The Inner Voice. Sheila Shotton as CBC Lady.
Kevin Crossley as Piano Player. as Newspaper Man.
Hal Frazier as Singer. M. Maslin, Janet (January 26, 1978).
Retrieved January 15, 2017. Corbett, Ben. Retrieved April 7, 2012. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
Retrieved 2017-01-15. Shepard, Sam (1977).
New York: The Viking Press. Retrieved April 7, 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2017. Further reading. Griffin, Sid (2010).
Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Yearbook. London: Jawbone Press. Shepard, Sam (1977). Rolling Thunder Logbook. New York: The Viking Press. Sloman, Larry 'Ratso' (2002). On the Road with Bob Dylan.
New York: Three Rivers Press. External links. on. at.
Storyline Plot Summary This epic is a mass amalgamation of three separate film-types that is, contrary to popular opinion, coherent and a unified whole. Bob Dylan is shown in concert, often masked, during the Rolling Thunder Revue. The film also features documentary footage, including Ruben 'Hurricane' Carter's struggle against the forces that have imprisoned him. The third element is fictional 'role-playing' footage with Bob Dylan in the guise of guitar-strumming Renaldo and his wife Sara as his companion Clara. Ronnie Hawkins takes on the role of Bob Dylan in these sequences.
The film includes footage of a visit to the grave of Jack Kerouac, an Allen Ginsberg poetry reading and various friends and acquaintances, namely David Blue (playing pinball by a swimming pool), discussing experiences on the road. Written by. Plot Keywords. Genres. Parents Guide Certification. Did You Know?
Trivia When the film was originally released, its screenings were extremely limited. The film received very many condemning reviews and many theaters refused the screenings. The film was cut from its original four-hour length to a two-hour length, and what was left was mostly concert footage. This version was shown in more theaters than the original director's cut. The original four-hour cut would appear on European television some time later, on Channel 4. Movie Connections Featured in (2008). Soundtracks When I Paint My Masterpiece Crazy Credits The opening credits end with a title card reading 'A Film by BOB DYLAN' directed after he is credited as writer and director.
The closing credits are divided in three sections, separated by wide time gaps, played over a different artist, soul singer Hal Frazier, performing 'In The Morning', a song written by Barry Gibb. Quotes: Why are you so much in a hurry? Is the law after you?: I am the law!
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |