Rolling Thunder Revue is Martin Scorsese’s film about Bob Dylan’s tour across the United States. The tour began in 1975 and became legendary, its very format a manifesto. Dylan defied the rules of show business: instead of heading out to play stadiums for 20,000 people, he decided to travel the country performing only in small towns.
In one scene, we even see Dylan at his record label, CBS, presenting the idea to executives and receiving a resounding no. But he goes on tour anyway. With very limited resources, he serves not only as leader but also as driver of the bus crossing the country to perform.
The tour has a certain circus-like quality, following a large, eclectic troupe that includes Joan Baez, Patti Smith, and poet Allen Ginsberg. Another incredible scene shows Dylan and Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac’s grave (the featured image of this post), sitting on the grass as Ginsberg reads Kerouac aloud…
Scorsese, who also directed No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005), combines a recent interview with Dylan with scenes from the tour and fictional ones, such as testimony by Sharon Stone recalling her participation in the tour as a young model wearing a Kiss T-shirt. In this sense, the film is closer to a mockumentary than a documentary.
Hurricane, one of the highlights
A mockumentary is a fictional or pseudo-documentary. In Scorsese’s film, however, more important than this combination of reality and invention is the recovery of a moment when a country deeply divided by the Vietnam War tries to find itself again, and the testimony to Dylan’s greatness as a musician and troubadour.
His duets with Joan Baez, his former girlfriend—with whom, according to Dylan, he could sing even in his sleep—are beautiful. One highlight is a song released during this tour, Hurricane, about the wrongful imprisonment of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in 1966.
The song is a true treatise against racism and a denunciation of the fragility of policies for equal civil rights in the United States at the time. The film shows Dylan meeting Carter in prison and the concert he gave there. It is moving and well worth watching. Rolling Thunder Revue is available on Netflix.
Access the playlist with all audio recordings of the Ouvir Imagens column broadcast on Rádio USP since March 2018 | Read all transcripts and posts.
This column has a playlist on YouTube. Visit and share.