Don't think twice, watch ....No Direction Home: Bob Dylan..tonght

[RedEarth]

Don't think twice, watch this

BY GLENN GARVIN
[e-mail]

• No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, 9-11 tonight, WPBT-PBS 2

In a hilariously telling moment in No Direction Home, a British audience is booing Bob Dylan's new reliance on electric guitars and drums instead of the traditional folkie acoustic instruments. ''Judas!'' screams one outraged ex-fan. A sneering Dylan turns to his band and demands: ``Play it bleeping loud!''

If there's a single thread running through Dylan's career as ''a musical expeditionary,'' as he likes to call himself, it's the refusal to let anyone else -- friends, lovers, managers, critics, and especially fans -- call the shots. And if there's a single greatest strength among the many of this fascinating film biography of Dylan, it's the refusal to soft-pedal his sheer orneriness.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and airing as part of PBS' American Masters series, the two-part No Direction Home (the second episode screens Tuesday at 9 p.m.) is unusual and perhaps unique in that Scorsese had no personal contact with Dylan at all.

Instead, the singer sat for 10 hours of video interviews shot by his archivist-manager, Jeff Rosen. Scorsese pieced together the rest from interviews with Dylan's old running mates (including Allen Ginsburg, Peter Yarrow and Maria Muldaur), rare concert footage and material like photos and lyric sheets supplied by the singer himself.

The result is a testament to Scorsese's considerable story-telling skills. With no narration at all, No Direction Home is an intricate yet seamless account of an elusive subject whose own friends call him a shape-shifter.

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