Product Description
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The Other Side of the Mirror - DVD
Few performances in history are as legendary - or as
controversial - as Bob Dylan's 1965 appearance at the Newport
Folk Festival. In a single, galvanizing instant, Dylan plugged an
entire generation in, forever changing not only the way the music
was made, but the way it was heard. By putting you in the
audience for Dylan's Newport performances from 1963 through that
pivotal set in 1965, Academy Award®-winning director Murray
Lerner's The Other Side Of The Mirror captures Dylan's
metamorphosis from the folk family's best-kept secret to rock's
fiercely confrontational poet who would electrify an entire
nation and become the voice of his generation.
CHAPTER LIST
All I Really Want To Do (7/24/1965) - afternoon workshop
1963
North Country Blues
With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)
Talkin' World War III Blues
Who Killed Davey Moore?
Only A Pawn In Their Game
Blowin' In The Wind (with The Freedom Singers, Joan Baez, and
Peter, Paul and Mary)
1964
Mr. Tambourine Man
Johnny Cash sings Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Joan Baez sings Mary Hamilton as Bob Dylan
It Ain't Me, Babe (with Joan Baez)
With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)
Chimes Of Freedom
1965
If You Gotta Go, Go Now
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Maggie's Farm (electric)
Like A Rolling Stone (electric)
Mr. Tambourine Man
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Bonus Feature: Interview with director Murray Lerner
.com
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Matched only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan
continues to captivate music and pop culture fans with a
seemingly never-ending stream of new and old s, books,
documentaries, feature films, and more. The Other Side of the
Mirror - Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 is a worthy
addition to the canon; whether this 83-minute compilation will
serve to illuminate the Dylan myth or merely perpetuate it is
open to question, but without a doubt there's plenty of
fascinating material here. There are nearly 20 songs represented,
covering three consecutive years of Dylan appearances at the
famed Rhode Island festival. Some have been seen before (most
recently in No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan doc,
and in Festival, a Newport chronicle released on DVD that same
year and directed by Murray Lerner, who is also responsible for
The Other Side of the Mirror). Some are from Dylan's daytime
"workshops," others from his nighttime main stage performances.
Some are complete, others oddly truncated. Some are terrific
(like "Chimes of Freedom," 1964), others not so much (cf. the
turgid "With God on Our Side" from '63, with Joan Baez adding
shrill harmony). In any case, these were the years when Dylan
assumed the mantle of "spokesman of a generation," whether he
wanted it or not. We see him evolving from the earnest young
protest singer of '63 to the visionary artist of the following
year who, with the astonishing torrent of rhymes, alliterations,
symbols, and brilliant turns of phrase in "Chimes" and "Mr.
Tambourine Man," turned the whole notion of songwriting on its
ear. And, of course, we also witness Dylan's turn from acoustic
to electric guitar, when he was joined onstage by members of the
Paul Butterfield Blues Band (sans Butterfield himself) in 1965;
only two songs from that legendary (and, at the time, infamous)
gig are seen here, and viewed four decades after the fact,
neither "Maggie's Farm" nor "Like a Rolling Stone" is all that
special, notwithstanding some searing solo work by guitarist Mike
Bloomfield. The DVD package, which includes a bonus interview
with Lerner and a nice booklet with liner notes by Tom Piazza,
adds to the appeal of what has to rank as a must-have for
Dylanologists of every stripe. --Sam Graham