For many people, the continued popularity and touted importance of the ’60s has become grating. How many movies and TV shows have commented on what it was like to be a youth during a time when there was a huge division in society, a time when the revolution seemed right around the corner?
The trend of portraying a microcosm of that world inside a single youth set to era-appropriate music began even before the end of that decade with the The Graduate (1967, Embassy), and it continues through the present with the likes of Forrest Gump (1994, Paramount) and Across The Universe (2007, Revolution).
Even those of us who were not alive during the ’60s can feel as if we know the whole story. We begin to feel bored with a generation for which many of our parents were even too young. Thankfully, Oscar-winning director Murray Lerner recognizes this in his new documentary The Other Side Of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival (Columbia, Oct. 30).
Other Side offers a different perspective on one of the seminal events in music history. Eschewing the considerable amount of scholarship done in the area, Lerner presents Dylan’s appearances in their raw state. The DVD is all show and no tell. There are no interviews with Dylan, no journalists, no music historians . just a few words from audience members and some brief input from Joan Baez filmed during the festivals.
Almost all of the hour-and-20-minute run time is given to Dylan onstage. He starts in front of smaller, silent crowds in ’63 and builds to the crowd-dividing use of an electric guitar at the traditionally acoustic event in ’65. All the trappings of modern music are absent; there is no light show, no synthesizer and certainly no lip-syncing. Just a young man armed with a guitar, a harmonica and the desire to change the world.
He is not yet a legend in his first few performances, but by the time the audience demands an encore in ’64, it is clear that he is not just a performer or a poet. It was often said that Dylan had his finger on the pulse of his generation. No matter how many times you hear this, it is not the same as seeing it happen.
That is the heart of Other Side: Lerner might as well have bought the viewer a train ticket to California and gotten them a spot in the crowd.
There are no re-shoots: The film does not cut out the trouble with the sound equipment, Dylan tuning and retuning his guitar or wind blowing into the microphone. Watching the film is an immersing experience.
At first it seems tedious that Lerner does not begin scenes at the beginning of each tune. However, the immersion pays off with the real power of the crowd. The energy of the audience is the co-star of Other Side.
The superlative moment for that energy is after Dylan’s inaugural use of an electric guitar to play “Maggie’s Farm.” For the first time, Newport’s favored son is lashed at with booing. The crowd thinks him a Judas for bringing the devil of the electric guitar to the hallowed ground of the folk festival. Yet, moments later, he captures back the crowd’s admiration with acoustic renditions of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
These last two performances on Other Side, especially “Baby Blue,” are its strongest, and there can be no doubt that Dylan has earned his place in history, as the credits begin to roll.
For anyone who idealizes Dylan and the counter-culture that was burgeoning back then, Other Side is as though someone had followed Jesus with a video camera and put the Bible on DVD.
