It's so intense, and it's so personal.
How do you talk about something, what, forty years ago?
Music is such an important part of my life, my creative life, personal life.
I was aware of the music and very often I'd go to a concert if I could.
I only saw, I think, Dylan in concert once or twice, maybe. That's it, in all these years.
My concentration was on cinema.
Cinema music, cinema literature, cinema.
The film that stuck in my mind though, something about this film made in '59, I think,
'Jazz on a Summer's Day'.
Rock 'n' Roll was, there was Doo-wop, there were other things, but somehow it was all
popular music.
It was captured in a way that I don't think has ever been equalled.
The key was staying on the performer.
Cause all the beauty and the magic and that element of the music that transcends the situation
comes from the performer.
I was drawn into that music world, so to speak, with 'The Last Waltz'.
It's as if, it seems to me that after a certain performance, certain songs, especially as
the concert moves on and they warm up,
it's like being around in a prize fight.
And they all got through it, they all got through it, "Ok, take a break, round 5!"
You know? And they go back in.
And then they soar.
They take off.
And I thought let's capture that. Let's capture the essence of who they, of that beauty of
their, of their art.
It's like a wild spiritual experience, you know? When it's really cookin', you know.
So in a sense, the footage that we were able to utilize in 'Rolling Thunder', is shot by
some incredible director-cameramen.
Dave Myers, Howard Alk, and a few others.
Here, the Rolling Thunder Revue, which I didn't know much about, but I sensed that there was
a negative response to this tour.
But, I didn't quite understand it.
People always complaining about something Bob Dylan did.
Always!
Like, you know, anything!
The footage that I saw that was captured from stage, on the stage was remarkable, I thought.
But what's the story?
What are we telling? What is it about?
David brought over the assembly of this film, and I remember watching it and it was in the
afternoon,
and then sunset came down by the end as the film was ending, it was very beautiful.
But, I looked at him and said, "I don't know, it's conventional."
Now, I'm not saying take something that's, "conventional" and distort it just for the
sake of distorting it.
So what is it really about? What do I care where they went?
I mean, you could have that, yeah, you could imply it.
What keeps it together, in that sense? This creative energy.
He always talked about the Commedia dell'arte, the traveling players.
When all else fails, that's what happens.
Person gets up, tells a story, and sings.
There's a mythology that grows up about it, so let's embrace the mythology.
This is not a legend, this is kind of myth, kind of supposed to explore something that
is timeless about us as human beings.
There's one shot of a young woman crying, after the concert.
To have something that, touching, that moves you so much,
that was real at that time.
It's nothing to ignore.
That if something can move us, and make us think,
make us feel before you think, even.
That's something that has to be preserved and has to be captured and be reminded,
audiences today they have to be reminded of what that's possible.
When they say, "Well directors create magic."
Not really.
I mean, it's more than that.
I don't see it as magic as directing films, I see that as the nature of film.
There's an element of to the tour that has a sense of fun to it.
It's doing something, to the audience, opening their minds, so that they don't expect the
normal thing.
The conventional.
You don't make it predictable.