SCREEN
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Dylan’s Rolling Thunder, Bee Gees and more.
★★★★
Dir: Martin Scorsese THE CRITERION COLLECTION. DVD/BR
The mock’n’doc of a landmark event in rock history.
Many were put off by actors portraying faux participants in what is primarily a documentary of Dylan’s legendary 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. But as director Scorsese explains in the accompanying bonus interview, the idea was to “get to the truth through a fabrication” and transcend the predictability of ordinary documentaries. Amid the cast of dozens, notably Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Roger McGuinn, here’s Sharon Stone pretending she’d been a teenage witness whose Kiss T-shirt inspired Dylan to wear make-up on-stage. The Revue’s essence is reaffirmed in other bonus extras, including tour reporter Ratso Sloman humorously recalling off-stage incidents, and three never-seen peak-Dylan performances, particularly a sizzling Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You. Special kudos to the booklet with tour memories by playwright Sam Shepard and poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.