So I emailed a bunch of people reminding them to watch Bob Dylan's 60 Minutes interview Sunday and some people now think I'm compelled to comment on the interview. So here goes.
Dylan seems to be offering very little in terms of separating Bob Dylan the man from Bob Dylan the character, which is hardly surprising. He never looked like he enjoyed the interview, which begs the question why he agreed to it in the first place. It's not like his publicist prodded him into it. When your author is Bob Dylan and the subject is himself, traditional promotion hardly seems like it would matter.
Aside from Dylan's guarded, if not strange, demeanor and the feeling that he never really opened himself up at all, the interview was actually quite good. What was more revealing than his answers for the most part was Ed Bradley's unrestrained glee at the interview. He mentioned in the lead-in how he's always wanted to interview Dylan and it was evident. More importantly, as the interview progressed, he seemed to become thrilled at the conservation itself. I wonder how much the editing played a role in shaping the interview. There were a lot of cuts to historical voice-over shite and it would have been nice to see what was trimmed from the actual interview.
The most compelling part of the whole thing was Dylan's description of how some of his best songs seemed to be written almost by magic. At some level, genius or greatness simply is. You can disect an artist in so many ways, but the very fact that some simply have a greatness beyond others is unexplainable.
I wasn't really surprised or impressed by anything in the 15-minute segment. He certainly won't win any new fans just because of the interview. But the character of Bob Dylan, if not the man himself, is so wrapped up in mystery that some mumbles and a dour expression are expected from a television interview.
2 comments:
I missed it. Not having much luck finding a video online either.
I concur. I get the feeling that that magic he talked about scares the shit out of him, and that by talking about it, he fears he may end it. He doesn't want to talk about himself or his talent at any lenghth, almost as if he's hiding from it. I do find his constant obstinance pretty obnoxious though. "I consider myself a song and dance man." Yeah right. You write a song called, "the times they are a changing," and you consider yourself merely an entertainer. I don't really buy his pretension. At the same time, I really pity the headache and discomfort that must go along with being BOB DYLAN.
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