YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

dbdumonteil Like the singer's own movie,"Renaldo and Clara" ,"no direction home " is a very looong movie (210 min);there the comparison ends : you do not need the fast forward button here ;every minute of Scorcese 's movie is absorbing ;it might be the best movie dealing with rock ever made.Although it only covers Dylan's first years (it stops in 1966 with the motorcycle accident),it is so dense, so well-documented that it seems to depict an entire life;everyone says ,anyway,that those years were the best in Dylan' s career:there were great things afterwards ("blood on the tracks" ) but who could claim that his music was more ground-breaking than in the 1963-66 era?"North country blues" ,for instance ,is not heard ,but when Dylan talks about the miners in his hometown ,and he tells us about their plight and the fact that they did not think of rebellion ,it's impossible not to think of the heroine who "married John Thomas a miner".Although it's linear ,the movie includes scenes of the " rock" period even when Dylan is still a folk singer and has not yet made an album.this may puzzle people not familiar with Dylan's biography but are there any in the people who watch the film?Scorcese displays a sense of humor which Dylan possessed in those years :for instance "when the ship comes in" (Joan Baez had already told the anecdote in her "and a voice to sing with" autobiography ) was written because Dylan was denied a room in a hotel;it became an anthem in Washington with MLK!When we see Dylan playing in public (and there are plenty of live songs) we say to ourselves that all these versions are much superior to the studio recordings which sound often like demos :this is confirmed by the singer in the movie.When asked if he prefers to be acclaimed or booed (he is booed several times in the movie),Dylan hints at Billie Holiday's impressive "strange fruit" after which the audience was silent . A lot of people ,from Dylan's legend (with the exception of Maria Muldaur)play a big part in the movie:the women, Echo,Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez of course:I'm sure that many people will think that too much is given over to Baez but I personally think that her contribution is vital to the story.Early in the movie,Dylan said that she opened a world for him.Her new cover of "love is just a four-letter world' is moving.Also of great interest are Pete Seeger's ,Dave Van Ronk's ,Allen Ginsberg's and Mike Bloomfield's contributions.Much to my surprise ,an important musician such as Robbie Robertson is not interviewed whereas he's often on the screen.Minor quibble: the interaction between Dylan and the Beatles (and to a lesser degree with the other groups of the British invasions ) is almost passed over in silence .Dylan made history: the events depicted in parallel to his-story (Kennedy,MLK or the cold war when he was a teenager) are reflected in his works ,not only the protest song (the prophetic " a hard rain's gonna fall" and the universal "only a pawn in her game" ) but also in the "surrealist" ones ("desolation row")Bob Dylan was the greatest American songwriter of the twentieth century: he's got the movie he deserved.Like this ... try these .... None of these movies come close to " No direction come" though...."Renaldo and Clara" (1978) for fans only;the others should try the DVD which includes all the live performances ONLY."Hard Rain" (MTV 1976) unfairly overlooked ,this concert includes fine Dylan/Baez duets as well as a heavy metal "shelter from the storm" version."The concert for Bangla Desh" (Saul Swimmer 1972) 5 songs with Harrison,Starr and Leon Russel;youtube offers an outtake ,a Harrison /Dylan duet , "if not for you" ."Don't look back" (Pennbaker,1967;Scorcese 's movie includes many extracts of this excellent documentary)"The last waltz" (Scorcese 1978) made when the Band split;Dylan's songs include an exciting version of "baby let me follow you down" ."Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid " (Peckinpah 1973) Alias who? Best avoid.

Chris_Docker People ask, but why did they boo when Bob Dylan started playing electric guitar? Surely it wasn't THAT big a deal??I was alive then. Believe me, it was. People got VERY upset about it. I think it was something to do with investing so heavily, in an emotional way, with his folk persona. He symbolised every teenager's dream of righteous rebellion. Audiences were far less fragmented in those days. People staked a lot on believing in him (or rather, believing what they wanted his lyrics to mean). You could cut the air with a knife when you asked someone, "if they liked his electric stuff".Bob Dylan reached the height of his fame after three or four albums of (largely) protest songs. He accompanied himself on nothing more than an acoustic guitar and harmonica. Some were simple stories. Some were deep reflections on man's inhumanity to man. He's had no singing training and his voice was rough. But his lyrics captured the imagination of a generation. It was the time of mass protests against the Vietnam war. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Boys wearing their hair long was an act of defiance. Revulsion against the values of their fathers, against a world 'gone wrong'. When I took a Bob Dylan record home, my father told me, "Get that music out of this house!"The only problem from Dylan's point of view was, he wasn't into being a figurehead for the antiwar movement or anything else. He just wanted to write his poetry. And sing. It's all he did. Many organisations were already on knife-edge over his refusal to 'lead the parade'. Dylan just kept on writing. Albums went platinum. And Dylan kept on writing.One day he put some of the new poems to music with electric guitars and a backing band. In retrospect, they are easily seen as the same kinda stuff. More sophisticated maybe, but still protestin'. Yet his fans didn't see it like that. The wandering minstrel image was gone. He looked not like a humble folk artist but like a rock star. It all aroused incredible animosity, especially when the technical limitations of some of the sound sets meant people couldn't hear the lyrics properly.Dylan didn't believe in pandering to his audience, although at one point he observes that he can't get in tune if they're booing. There is a concert where they boo continuously (Why did they buy tickets? he wonders . . . But with no thought of going backwards). The only break in the crowd's response is when he plays a song they recognise cos it happens to be near the top of the charts.These were kids that really listened to his lyrics. He could fill the Albert Hall and well-behaved, thoughtful teenagers had sat in rapt attention as he intoned Masters of War or Blowin' in the Wind. They wanted his poetry. But more than that, they wanted a hero. When he 'went electric', the volume seemed to crash through the genteel folk stage like a blasphemous typhoon wind. No Direction home is no idealised portrait of Dylan. Meandering through several hours of archive footage, interviews and concerts, Scorsese presents him not as a hero but as a man. The sound quality on some of the electric sets really is abominable. The pre-fame Dylan is accused of stealing some rare records and of telling lies if it was necessary to get on. But this seemingly rambling biopic eventually drives home a point that baffled his audiences at the time: Dylan, in all his guises, just wrote poetry. If people used it for anything else that was up to them.No Direction Home is not the gripping viewing you might expect for a portrait of one of the most famous recording artists of all time. But it gets to the heart of the man in a way that even Dylan's own (much later) autobiography hardly got to. For those who have read the biography, those early years are beautifully sketched out in the film. Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, even Woody Guthrie. Talking heads include Joan Baez giving her recollections, and the old man himself, looking back on his early rise to fame with an openness that few have witnessed before. It is a very different film from Pennebaker's Don't Look Back. A more complex portrait than the earlier film set out to achieve, No Direction Home is Bob Dylan deconstructed.One day someone will make a fictionalised movie of Bob Dylan. And Scorsese's documentary film will be a major historical resource.

beasymc the best rock movie of all time. Martin is pure genius. I just love the guy. long movie, sure, but part two just flies by. What an insight. Personally, I think Martin should make more of these on artists that he admires like this one on Bob Dylan. Where does he get this stuff. I read where he really didn't talk to Bob while he was making this movie. even more brilliant. I've got to think Dylan had to love this when he saw it for the first time. It always amazes me how most people just don't get it. The questions they ask, yikes. All i can say is it is a great story. I hope someone does something like this on Scorsese. I love his passion to try to get things right. He is inspiring. Thanks again Martin, and to you too, Bob for having the courage just to be you in the face of it all.

lmayer2 If you don't appreciate Dylan, you can appreciate him as a multi-talented musicians because that's what he is and that's what he set out to be. Bob Dylan is modern-day and back in the day marvel. He is a living legend. He can sing, play the guitar and the harmonica all at once! No one even comes close to him with his many talents. And Scorsese, with his unparalleled directing abilities, couldn't have put this chronicle of Bob Dylan any better. A five-star biography, if you will and a remembrance of the greatest folk singer out there and quite possibly thee greatest musician. Bob Dylan is a monumentous poet/musician/whatever you want to call him and it was only fitting that Scorsese took on this behemoth. Great job, five-star. Simply astonishing and beautiful!