A must-see film for all Dylan fans: Rolling Thunder Revue

Martin Scorsese's Netflix documentary, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (2019), will probably be a little interest to everyone except Dylan fans - yet who isn't a Dylan fan? For those, like me, who hold that he is the world's greatest living artist, this film, even at 2+ hours, is a must-see. Using archival footage - in particular, lots of footage from a tour video shot by Martin von Haselberg - Scorcese re-creates the mood and feeling of what it was like to be part of this monumental 1975 tour with Dylan and a large and ever-evolving entourage, including notably Baez, Ginsberg, Joni Mitchell, and the violinist Scarlet Rivera, whose sound contributed so much to these mid-career works (Desire) when Dylan was at one of the peaks in his creativity. The captures from live performance are great of course - a lot of time given to the beautiful Oh Sister and One More Cup of Coffee - and we also see how Dylan was continually reworking his early material, bringing it to new life: a fine performance, for ex., of Hattie Carroll. Most of all we get a little bit of clue as to what Dylan was like in private moments: man jam sessions, a few after-concert parties, some rehearsal time, some fooling-around singing while on the bus, and in particular a few "episodes" on the tour that were little known: A visit to a Native American community in upstate NY, where D sand "Ira Hayes"; a visit to Clinton Correctional, where D sang Hurricane; time in Gordon Lightfoot's apt., where Mitchell sand a newly composed song. Plus, material from a contemporary interview w/ Dylan, in which he proves ever-enigmatic but strangely insightful as well. This doc. of course makes a good bookend w/ Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, about a much-younger Dylan struggling w/ his breakthrough into rock music, which changed music forever; here, D is much less the troubled adolescent, but clearly the center of attention, clearly a star, clearly completely committed to his music, but still strangely ill at ease and laconic. A surprise: I was amazed to see that D actually drove the tour bus. Who knew? All told, this doc breaks no new ground in cinema, and sure it could have been a half-hour shorter w/ judicious cuts of talking-heads footage and of the tour crew talking w/ young fans at the various venues - but for the unique and unexpected window onto Dylan's work and creative intelligence it's worth every minute.