“I really think that musicians, probably musicians and cooks, are responsible for the most pleasure in human life.”
That’s a quote from Fran Lebowitz, featured in Martin Scorsese’s Pretend It’s a City documentary. We want music, but we want the feelings music provides just as much. Even more, we want a story. In his musical documentaries, Scorsese largely focuses on well-known acts like George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and the Band, but he inserts his own ideas whenever possible. It could be the unique way his camera captures the subject, or a series of fictional events tacked onto a real historical moment. Whatever the addition, it comes from a place of adoration and acknowledgement of music’s impact on life, elevating simple songs into grand finales, or meticulously searching for the lost records that inspired an artist’s greatest work. These films may appear indulgent on Scorsese’s part, but I’d argue that there’s nothing wrong with telling the story you want to tell, especially when that story is entertaining.
Scorsese began mythologizing his favorite musicians with 1978’s The Last Waltz, a live recording of the Band’s final concert (before their reunion in the ‘90s). In 2001 he directed the blues retrospective Feel Like Going Home, and in 2005 there was No Direction Home, the first of two Bob Dylan epics. There was a Rolling Stones concert film, plus the 2011 George Harrison doc Living in the Material World, and here I’ll focus mainly on the George and Bob films since they’re the most approachable and accessible.
No Direction Home attempts to bridge the musical gap between the first half of the 20th century and the ‘60s, guided by Bob Dylan’s own reverence for foundational blues and rockabilly. Right away, it’s clear this isn’t solely a film about Dylan, but an analysis of the music culture that made him. When the filmmakers convince Dylan to talk about himself, he speaks in a dejected tone, as if discussing an important musician whom he didn’t particularly like. That’s par for the course in a Dylan interview, but Scorsese brings a unique camera and editing style to the table: a slow pan back and forth, up and down as Dylan sits stationary; no music or fancy transitions, just Dylan talking until a hard cut to the next scene.
The effect of the interview is blissful clarity. There’s no musical or visual clutter vying for audience attention while someone is talking, and the scenes that come after aren’t dramatized or built up to in obvious ways. Across his documentaries, Scorsese employs very few oddball edits, one of the few being Paul McCartney in Living in the Material World telling the story of George Harrison’s audition for the Beatles: Harrison played Paul and John a riff, and as McCartney mimes the guitar work, the riff plays over his interview audio. Moments like this make me sit up in my seat, and they’re not even that complex. The more noticeable editing choices like this one aren’t meant to impress, but to enhance your understanding. It’s up to the viewer to pay attention or not, but Scorsese’s respect for his musical idols comes across, and it’s hard not to share that respect.
Living in the Material World sees Harrison discussing his childhood, the Beatles, post-Beatles life, religion, his wives, and friends; by the end of the film he’s gone full circle by playing music with his son, forming a childhood vastly different from his own. At the end of Part One, Harrison struggles to get the Beatles on board with his new song, bringing in Eric Clapton to play on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The tension between the lads is peaking, and it’s obvious the film will soon deal with Harrison’s solo years; yet, Part Two opens with the same song, now acoustic and trembling, as if Harrison were singing it 40 years later.
The subtext here is revolutionary. I’m being dramatic, but it’s genuinely an unexpected choice to begin the post-Beatles era with a Beatles song, and Scorsese uses this transition not to highlight Harrison’s new freedom, but his consistency as a songwriter. Living in the Material World tells the major events of Harrison’s life in logical order, with frequent jumps backward and forward in time. The soundtrack follows the same principle, spotlighting early songwriting attempts like “Don’t Bother Me” at the beginning of the film, then jumping ahead 15 years to the mixing of “Awaiting On You All” to demonstrate Harrison’s improved skill. Scorsese uses these songs to form a picture of George Harrison, even using certain songs multiple times to get a point across (including a less-than-great version of “What is Life” to emphasize Harrison’s drug use). That small commitment to a non-linear soundtrack is one of the great things about this sprawling film, and why it’s so rewatchable: by removing the forward progression of Harrison’s songwriting, each song can be considered as is, rather than as a stepping-stone to “Something” better.
Yes, that entire paragraph was written for that pun. Moving on…or back, I should say, because we’re still not done talking about Dylan. In D.A. Pennebaker’s 1965 doc Don’t Look Back, a young Dylan is insulted by the notion that he should cater to fans. There isn’t a single journalist in that film whom he doesn’t insult in some minor (or very, very major) way for suggesting that his new music is “too different” or “alienating.” 2019’s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is both an acknowledgement and a send-up of fan expectations.
For his second Dylan film, Scorsese reinterprets footage shot on Dylan’s 1975 tour (originally intended for the film Renaldo and Clara, an extremely rough diamond even fans remain wary of) into a more traditional concert film. But who cares about the footage…is the new Dylan interview any good? Unlike No Direction Home, this film has no intention of being educational: Dylan disregards the tour as lost to history, claims he doesn’t remember it, and makes up a fictional director whom he says shot all the footage. Rolling Thunder is not about sharing a love of music or even telling an accurate history. “Vanity project” seems like the right term, but that’s not such a bad thing. I find it interesting when directors indulge their heroes: who among us wouldn’t make an extravagant documentary on our favorite musicians, given the chance? (If the money were there, I would definitely make that Wilco doc on the making of A Ghost Is Born, because wow, what was going on there?)
I digress, but that’s sort of in keeping with this film. Every time Scorsese shows a live performance, I forget what I’m thinking and watch in awe, but the many conversations and road trip antics are what make the tour feel like a real historical moment. Some things really happened, like a jam between Joni Mitchell, Dylan, and the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn (Joni is angelic). Others are smoke and mirrors, like Sharon Stone joining the tour as a groupie or that fictional director’s art film that supposedly played around the U.S. Together, these events form an idealized picture of a time period that many hold dear, but that was certainly not as magical as it is presented here. Rolling Thunder makes plain that Dylan and Scorsese wanted a new version of history to look back on, one that glorified music and emphasized the communal nature of the tour. It’s not the most accurate version of events, but that’s what history books are for. Here we see what Scorsese sees, and that’s about all I can ask for from a documentary with the filmmaker’s name in the title.
Scorsese pulled the same trick in The Last Waltz, raising up a band’s music and vast circle of friends in a last concert for the ages. The film is bookended by a staged performance of the Band playing antique, vaguely Civil War-era instruments. They play a swooning instrumental piece titled “The Last Waltz,” and the camera captures their prowess from high above as if descending from the heavens. Keep in mind, this is a rock band we’re watching. The rest of the film is a well-shot series of performances and band interviews, but even so, Scorsese keeps appearing to make it known that this is his vision of the Band’s dissolution.
Guest stars like Dr. John, Eric Clapton, and Joni Mitchell form a communal atmosphere, as if every great rock artist of the ‘70s were gathering for one band’s farewell show. It’s important to ask, considering all this, why Scorsese felt the need to add more drama. The bookend is Scorsese’s painstakingly arranged version of the Band’s final song, their last seconds on stage captured in a romantic glow opposed to the fervor and sweat of the actual concert. It’s unnecessary, a deliberate fantasy, but Scorsese is making movies, not writing a biography. When I sit down to watch a documentary, I can’t escape the idea that someone’s opinion of the subject is guiding what we see. Some films try to hide that fact, but with Scorsese, it’s quite obvious what emotional place his ideas are coming from: reverence, and a desire to elevate. No matter the subject, Scorsese doesn’t just want to tell a good story, but his story. It’s not that the musicians don’t matter, but that Scorsese refuses to ignore their impact on his life, knowing the music will forever be colored by his perception of it. Attempting to translate the feelings music gives into film is a tough pursuit, but Scorsese doesn’t hide his emotion, and that’s something to admire.
