Oh, HELLO there?
Can you name a song turned into a movie? Not counting rock operas or full albums? I can't, at least off the top of my head. I suppose it's possible; if Spike Jonze can turn Where the Wild Things Are into a movie, it follows that some songs can become movies. If you have an interest in doing this, see Masked and Anonymous. It's very much an illustration of why you should probably put that screenplay of yours in the shredder. While not based on a specific song, it was penned by Bob Dylan and its director, Larry Charles. It's more a curiosity than a movie, featuring the same kind of impenetrable imagery one might find in Dylan's songs. Charles admits as much:
Mission accomplished, I say. It truly is a movie that's "ambiguous" and "hard to figure out," but to what end? A Dylan song can be densely packed, full of small details, contradictions, literary and historical characters. His "Desolation Row" is an example of this, but I would not want it as a movie.
The problems with the idea itself are numerous, and they undercut some okay acting, a great cast and interesting direction. Dylan himself is cast as Jack Fate, one of many unfortunate names that would probably sound fine as a character in a song (others include: Tom Friend, Pagan Lace, Uncle Sweetheart... aw, fuck it. Look at imdb's page). As characters in a movie, though, they are all one-dimensional creations. Fate is much like the singer in a song: an observer, which is unfortunate because Dylan is not much of an actor. If the canonization of his music and persona has sealed him into an almost inhuman figure, his flat line readings and evasive maneuvers when questioned by the press aren't helping. His physical appearance - so small and thin - makes him a worrisome presence (and it doesn't help that he spends much of the movie standing next to John Goodman). He would not be out of place in the background of a diner in a David Lynch movie. Of course, he is based on Dylan: Jeff Bridges' journalist questions him about not being at Woodstock; the songs by "Jack Fate" are old Dylan songs.
Aside from those details, though, he is an observer to the events around him, passively listening as Jeff Bridges berates him with questions, or as Val Kilmer waxes philosophical about God-knows-what. That's a problem for a movie, because the viewer is already an observer to the action. If a song is like a story being relayed (via its singer), a film is like a memory being shared. You don't need the passive figure to hang up your decorative crazy characters. It frees up the cast to do a whole lot of "ACTING" around him in monologues, which, unfortunately, are not as full of insight as they (the actors, writers, directors, characters) may think. They all riff on the nature of revolutions, war, the world, whatever. It's all related to the plot, which is just window dressing for Dylan and Charles to congratulate themselves on their ability to write a good comeback ("If you had to kill a man, what would you use? A knife or a gun?" "My bare hands," and so the conversations in this movie goes). One of the problems of the movie is the sheer normality of its characters, despite its attempts at strangeness. Of course John Goodman's a blowhard. Of course Luke Wilson's a really nice guy. Of course Mickey Rourke's a bit of a bastard. Part of the problem with loading the cast with such big names is that you can't get past the types of characters these actors generally play. It robs the movie of its attempted weirdness to typecast everyone in roles we've seen before.
One could argue that maybe that's another layer to the movie, like, maybe the "movie" is commenting on how we "perceive" these "people" as "characters," maaan. But even if that was intentional, doesn't that seem like an awful burden to load onto a movie that already ruminates on the nature of war, man, the role of the protest singer, journalism and whatever the hell else Dylan and Charles were getting at? A Dylan song's lyrics can run into wild, surreal directions, but they're always much more focused than this movie. Even something that twists and turns like "Tangled Up in Blue" or "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" are focused on one subject or mood.
Masked and Anonymous struggles to share the dense detail of a Dylan song, too. Every frame is packed with little decorations, but to what purpose? The lighting has a greenish hue. John Goodman wears an atrocious powder blue suit. Penelope Cruz wears a Metallica T-shirt (to his credit, Mickey Rourke probably just showed up on set looking like that), but why? People exist and say things that don't matter. It's like a dream, but in a bad way. A song can coast on its melody; if the lyrics are merely evocative (and Dylan's often can be), it's merely for the mood or the idea that's being expressed. Feature length films don't generally have this luxury because they're at least 90 minutes long. An exception might be David Lynch films, but his inventions are more outrageous than anything here.
Can you name a song turned into a movie? Not counting rock operas or full albums? I can't, at least off the top of my head. I suppose it's possible; if Spike Jonze can turn Where the Wild Things Are into a movie, it follows that some songs can become movies. If you have an interest in doing this, see Masked and Anonymous. It's very much an illustration of why you should probably put that screenplay of yours in the shredder. While not based on a specific song, it was penned by Bob Dylan and its director, Larry Charles. It's more a curiosity than a movie, featuring the same kind of impenetrable imagery one might find in Dylan's songs. Charles admits as much:
When I made the Bob Dylan movie [Masked and Anonymous], I wanted to make a Bob Dylan movie that was like a Bob Dylan song. One with a lot of layers, that had a lot of poetry, that had a lot of surrealism and was ambiguous and hard to figure out, like a puzzle.
Mission accomplished, I say. It truly is a movie that's "ambiguous" and "hard to figure out," but to what end? A Dylan song can be densely packed, full of small details, contradictions, literary and historical characters. His "Desolation Row" is an example of this, but I would not want it as a movie.
The problems with the idea itself are numerous, and they undercut some okay acting, a great cast and interesting direction. Dylan himself is cast as Jack Fate, one of many unfortunate names that would probably sound fine as a character in a song (others include: Tom Friend, Pagan Lace, Uncle Sweetheart... aw, fuck it. Look at imdb's page). As characters in a movie, though, they are all one-dimensional creations. Fate is much like the singer in a song: an observer, which is unfortunate because Dylan is not much of an actor. If the canonization of his music and persona has sealed him into an almost inhuman figure, his flat line readings and evasive maneuvers when questioned by the press aren't helping. His physical appearance - so small and thin - makes him a worrisome presence (and it doesn't help that he spends much of the movie standing next to John Goodman). He would not be out of place in the background of a diner in a David Lynch movie. Of course, he is based on Dylan: Jeff Bridges' journalist questions him about not being at Woodstock; the songs by "Jack Fate" are old Dylan songs.
Aside from those details, though, he is an observer to the events around him, passively listening as Jeff Bridges berates him with questions, or as Val Kilmer waxes philosophical about God-knows-what. That's a problem for a movie, because the viewer is already an observer to the action. If a song is like a story being relayed (via its singer), a film is like a memory being shared. You don't need the passive figure to hang up your decorative crazy characters. It frees up the cast to do a whole lot of "ACTING" around him in monologues, which, unfortunately, are not as full of insight as they (the actors, writers, directors, characters) may think. They all riff on the nature of revolutions, war, the world, whatever. It's all related to the plot, which is just window dressing for Dylan and Charles to congratulate themselves on their ability to write a good comeback ("If you had to kill a man, what would you use? A knife or a gun?" "My bare hands," and so the conversations in this movie goes). One of the problems of the movie is the sheer normality of its characters, despite its attempts at strangeness. Of course John Goodman's a blowhard. Of course Luke Wilson's a really nice guy. Of course Mickey Rourke's a bit of a bastard. Part of the problem with loading the cast with such big names is that you can't get past the types of characters these actors generally play. It robs the movie of its attempted weirdness to typecast everyone in roles we've seen before.
One could argue that maybe that's another layer to the movie, like, maybe the "movie" is commenting on how we "perceive" these "people" as "characters," maaan. But even if that was intentional, doesn't that seem like an awful burden to load onto a movie that already ruminates on the nature of war, man, the role of the protest singer, journalism and whatever the hell else Dylan and Charles were getting at? A Dylan song's lyrics can run into wild, surreal directions, but they're always much more focused than this movie. Even something that twists and turns like "Tangled Up in Blue" or "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" are focused on one subject or mood.
Masked and Anonymous struggles to share the dense detail of a Dylan song, too. Every frame is packed with little decorations, but to what purpose? The lighting has a greenish hue. John Goodman wears an atrocious powder blue suit. Penelope Cruz wears a Metallica T-shirt (to his credit, Mickey Rourke probably just showed up on set looking like that), but why? People exist and say things that don't matter. It's like a dream, but in a bad way. A song can coast on its melody; if the lyrics are merely evocative (and Dylan's often can be), it's merely for the mood or the idea that's being expressed. Feature length films don't generally have this luxury because they're at least 90 minutes long. An exception might be David Lynch films, but his inventions are more outrageous than anything here.
Anyway, I don't want to belabor this point much. In the end, as an attempt to make a movie out of a song (or some kind of "movie song"), it's proof that maybe this isn't a great idea. To leave on a positive note, though, the reworkings, remakes and covers of Dylan songs are pretty interesting. Also, near the end of this movie, you do get a chance to see the (estimating from this movie: 4'7"/27 lbs/205 y.o.) Bob Dylan beat up the (estimating from this movie: 6'1"/250 lbs/47 y.o.) Jeff Bridges without any effort (or acting) whatsoever. This won't be a Great-Bad Hall of Fame entry ever (too boring), but that scene on its own certainly deserves a mention.
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