May 24, 2003
More on Dylan: he's got a new movie coming out.
Wandering around Bob's site (bobdylan.com), I found this link to a new movie he's made, called
"Masked and Anonymous". Sounds very, shall I say, dylanesque.
Set somewhere, sometime, in an America wracked by an endless and senseless civil war, MASKED AND ANONYMOUS is the story of a benefit concert and a musician named Jack Fate (Bob Dylan).
It is the story of Jack Fate's former manager, Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman), a skimming, scamming, scheming cross between P.T. Barnum and Colonel Tom Parker in debt to mysterious creditors to a tune he can't pay; of Nina Veronica (Jessica Lange) a TV producer who has seen it all and risks everything either because she believes in Fate or because she doesn't believe in anything at all, and of Bobby Cupid (Luke Wilson), the devoted acolyte and ex-roadie, whose entire life has been defined by Jack Fate's music.
Bailed out of jail by Sweetheart to play one last concert, Fate journeys to the network soundstage where the performance will be broadcast. Along the way, he crosses paths with a woman from his past (Laura Elena Harring), a fellow wanderer (Cheech Marin) and a solitary soldier (Giovanni Ribisi), whose lives paint a picture for Jack of the world he is entering. His travels trigger reveries as well--of the dying President (Richard Sarafian), and his Mistress (Angela Bassett)--key players in Jack's personal history. He is drawn back to his own beginnings when he faces Edmund (Mickey Rourke), the next in line to assume the presidency, with the sycophantic Edgar (Steven Bauer) at his side.
"Skimming, scamming, scheming." Ooh, I like that. Check out this cast:
Starring (in alphabetical order) Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Luke Wilson and featuring Angela Bassett, with Steven Bauer, Michael Paul Chan, Bruce Dern, Laura Elena Harring, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Mickey Rourke, Richard Sarafian, Christian Slater, Susan Tyrrell, Fred Ward and Robert Wisdom.
Wow. Hard to see this cast making a bad movie, especially with Cheech around to keep them laughing. Lots of interesting connections here. Bridges and Goodman were both in the Coen brothers "The Big Liebowitz." Jessica Lange is married to Sam Shepherd, with whom Bob Dylan once wrote an incredible song named
Brownsville Girl. OK, cross a Coen brothers movie with a Sam Shepherd play and a Bob Dylan concert and set it "in an America wracked by a endless and senseless civil war." Sounds good to me. Hey, at least it's not a sequel or a remake.
Bob made a movie before,
Renaldo and Clara, way back in the seventies. There are two versions, an awesome four hour one, and a two hour abridged one. I remember seeing the four hour version when it came out. It was roundly panned by the critics but I thought it was great. Tons of great music, Allen Ginsberg reading poetry, visit to an Indian reservation, all sorts of interesting stuff.
In fact this all reminds me of the lyrics to
Brownsville Girl, which is a classic slice of Americana, and, curiously, about a movie, among other things.
Well, there was this movie I seen one time,
About a man riding 'cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck.
He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself.
The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.
Well, the marshal, now he beat that kid to a bloody pulp
as the dying gunfighter lay in the sun and gasped for his last breath.
Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square,
I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death.
Well, I keep seeing this stuff and it just comes a-rolling in
And you know it blows right through me like a ball and chain.
You know I can't believe we've lived so long and are still so far apart.
The memory of you keeps callin' after me like a rollin' train.
[It goes on and on from there. It's a really weird song.]
...
Well, I'm standin' in line in the rain to see a movie starring Gregory Peck,
Yeah, but you know it's not the one that I had in mind.
He's got a new one out now, I don't even know what it's about
But I'll see him in anything so I'll stand in line.
Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls, teeth like pearls shining like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world, Brownsville girl, you're my honey love.
