I'm Not There

I finally saw "I'm Not There"--Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan "biopic" --for the first time.

Blown completely away. Why didn't I see this movie sooner? I almost don't want to see anything else by Haynes for fear it won't come close to reaching the highs of this movie. I feel a long, long Dylan/folk mood coming on very soon. Well, to be fair I feel I've been moving toward that recently anyway--I've been dying to delve into the work of Woody Guthrie, and a 54-song compilation just dropped which I can't wait to get my hands on.

I've always been a bigger fan of Dylan's early folkier stuff than some of his later work, but "I'm Not There" makes me think I should give the mid/late 70's stuff a longer look...especially the Basement Tapes and Rolling Thunder Revue-period Dylan. When I was watching the special features for "I'm Not There" and doing a little wiki-research, I found that the version of Dylan people had the biggest problem with was Richard Gere's Billy the Kid Dylan. For those of you who know me, it shouldn't come as a surprise that this was my favorite section of the movie (aside from maybe Cate Blanchetts'--but it's hardly fair to compare other parts to hers' I think...). The town of Riddle and all it's fantastical, post-Civil War/reconstruction period imagery just blew me away.

And one moment stuck out in particular: Gere goes to witness a funeral in the town square, where a man with a painted white face and Civil War get-up sings, along with a horn section accompanyment, an incredibly beautiful, haunting version of Dylan's "Goin' to Acapulco", from the Basement Tapes. So. Fucking. Good.

You really just need to see it though--the cover is great, as sung by My Morning Jacket's Jim James with accompanyment by the band Calexico, but the scene itself really just puts it over the top for me. One of my favorite cinamatic scenes in recent memory. Check it out below...