Movies in Brief

Bob Dylan—Don’t Look Back is a record of the singer-songwriter’s concert tour of Britain in the spring of 1965. “The only tune my guitar can play is, Oh the cruel rain and the wind,” Dylan says in one of his early songs, and the image of Dylan in his music (“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Desolation Row”) and his interviews is of a cynical weirdo whose furious sounds signify everything and mean nothing, and whose press conferences are directed toward demolishing responsible journalism. The film gives us a different impression. If Dylan occasionally puts people on or down, it is because he feels (probably rightly) unjustly put upon. Dylan seems rarely to have a moment’s peace from either his potential hangmen or his actual hangers-on. At times he retreats into the world of his music, oblivious to the chatter of his friends; at other times, he strikes out at reporters who know only that he “performs folk songs.” And although Dylan lets filmmaker D. A. Penne-baker’s camera see his engaging facade, Dylan conceals more than he reveals, for Pennebaker is but another inquiring journalist, whose asset is that he asks no questions about the “real” Dylan, and whose liability is that he gets no answers.

Each of three recent films deals lyrically with a young person’s first love affair and ends in tragedy—that, plus a common standard of excellence, unites Bonnie and Clyde, Elvira Madigan and Closely Watched Trains. Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, the best American film of the year (admittedly by default), takes us on a jaunty jalopy ride through the Depression-parched Dust Bowl region with a quintet of bucolic bank robbers—led by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker—until, suddenly, the vehicle backfires and we find ourselves smack up against the equivalent of an American tragedy (since, like most American characters, Bonnie and Clyde are more pathetic than tragic) : an American pathedy. From there on, our necks and sensibilities have been so twisted that we feel guilty for having laughed along with the Barrow Gang. But Penn has another test for our shock absorbers: a brutal, beautiful murder sequence that combines the carnage of Titus Andronicus with the delicacy of Swan Lake. The film has flaws: Clyde’s impotence, exorcised by Boninei just before the shoot’em-up, is conquered too facilely—it just misses the ludicrous comeuppance that climaxed The Family Way—and a scene of reunion with Bonnie’s mother, photographed through a filter, draws attention to Penn and away from the characters. But the cast (especially Warren Beatty, mirabile dictu) gives an exceptional ensemble performance, and the film has the dual force of a first kiss and a bullet in the groin. Your disposition will determine which memory lingers longer.

RC

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Richard Corliss

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Bob Dylan—Don’t Look Back is a record of the singer-songwriter’s concert tour of Britain in the spring of 1965. “The only tune my guitar can play is, Oh the cruel rain and the wind,” Dylan says in one of his early songs, and the image of Dylan in his music (“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Desolation Row”) and his interviews is of a cynical weirdo whose furious sounds signify everything and mean nothing, and whose press conferences are directed toward demolishing responsible journalism. The film gives us a different impression. If Dylan occasionally puts people on or down, it is because he feels (probably rightly) unjustly put upon. Dylan seems rarely to have a moment’s peace from either his potential hangmen or his actual hangers-on. At times he retreats into the world of his music, oblivious to the chatter of his friends; at other times, he strikes out at reporters who know only that he “performs folk songs.” And although Dylan lets filmmaker D. A. Penne-baker’s camera see his engaging facade, Dylan conceals more than he reveals, for Pennebaker is but another inquiring journalist, whose asset is that he asks no questions about the “real” Dylan, and whose liability is that he gets no answers.

Each of three recent films deals lyrically with a young person’s first love affair and ends in tragedy—that, plus a common standard of excellence, unites Bonnie and Clyde, Elvira Madigan and Closely Watched Trains. Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, the best American film of the year (admittedly by default), takes us on a jaunty jalopy ride through the Depression-parched Dust Bowl region with a quintet of bucolic bank robbers—led by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker—until, suddenly, the vehicle backfires and we find ourselves smack up against the equivalent of an American tragedy (since, like most American characters, Bonnie and Clyde are more pathetic than tragic) : an American pathedy. From there on, our necks and sensibilities have been so twisted that we feel guilty for having laughed along with the Barrow Gang. But Penn has another test for our shock absorbers: a brutal, beautiful murder sequence that combines the carnage of Titus Andronicus with the delicacy of Swan Lake. The film has flaws: Clyde’s impotence, exorcised by Boninei just before the shoot’em-up, is conquered too facilely—it just misses the ludicrous comeuppance that climaxed The Family Way—and a scene of reunion with Bonnie’s mother, photographed through a filter, draws attention to Penn and away from the characters. But the cast (especially Warren Beatty, mirabile dictu) gives an exceptional ensemble performance, and the film has the dual force of a first kiss and a bullet in the groin. Your disposition will determine which memory lingers longer.