THE SUN WILL RESPECT EVERY FACE ON THE DECK

(1-1/2 hour "contour" drawing, 4:20 to 5:50 a.m., using a fairly recent photo of Bob Dylan, drawn using the Appleworks6 "Painting" program on an iBookG4, while listening to the soundtrack for "I'm Not There", downloaded from iTunes at the end of October.)

Yesterday I went downtown, somewhat apprehensively, to see Todd Hayne's film, "I'm Not There" at The Pickford. There was a sign on the ticket window with an apology. The film hadn't arrived in time for the 12:50 showing. I drove downtown again for the 3:40 show, where there were plenty of empty seats.

I was surprised at the level at which I was "moved" by what is certainly a peculiar and challenging movie. As I am writing this and listening to the soundtrack from "I'm Not There," Marcus Carl Franklin starts singing "When The Ship Comes In":

". . . A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline.
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck,
The hour that the ship comes in . . . "

The 37-song soundtrack introduces me to the music of a distinctive assortment of younger voices singing Bob Dylan songs, including a teenage actor from the film, Marcus Carl Franklin, as well the older voices of Richie Havens, Willie Nelson and Rambling Jack Elliott.

And I have no trouble at all understanding how a person could find nothing good at all to say about Todd Hayne's film or Bob Dylan and his music.

I'm one of those who never stopped listening to Bob Dylan, for good or for worse, because I felt a kinship with him that has survived since I was 14 years old. I began by idolizing him and grew to appreciate what I see as his qualities of being a vulnerable, unpredictable and creative human being. How could I not love the person who, as a young man wrote:

" . . . I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different from anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you . . . "
(from "I Shall Be Free, No. 10")

and as a 65-year-old man wrote:

". . . They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray for me, mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am a-tryin' to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well . . . "

(from "Ain't Talkin")

Particularly moving for me were the parts of "I'm Not There" concerned with Bob Dylan as a husband and father:







(photo copyright by Elliott Landy)

No man can see Bob Dylan through a woman's eyes, just as no woman can see Bob Dylan through a man's eyes.

Perhaps that is the genius of Cate Blanchett playing the role of Jude Quinn / Bob Dylan in a way that is as unforgettable to me as Bob Dylan himself.

Imaginary Relationship (1984)

“The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one.” (Joan Baez) 

This drawing may have originated from photographs of singer/songwriters, Patti Smith and Bob Dylan, but I can't say for sure because the result wasn't a likeness of either Patti Smith or Bob Dylan. Like Patti Smith and countless people from my generation, my creativity was sparked and sustained by listening to Bob Dylan. Joan Baez, who appeared and spoke about Bob Dylan in Martin Scorsese's film, "No Direction Home," said something to the effect that many people are not in any way moved by Bob Dylan's words and music, but those who are moved feel moved in a way that goes very very deep. 

All of my drawings in the current series were created using photographs as starting points. "Woman Listening," from a few days ago, was a composite of the singer/songwriter, Bob Dylan; the artist, Georgia O'Keeffe; and the writer, Alice Walker.I frequently used photographs of Bob Dylan as starting points for making images of women. It is interesting to me that a woman, Cate Blanchett, is playing the part of a young Bob Dylan in the new film, "I'm Not There," and that Joan Baez, dressed and made up to look like Bob Dylan, performed with Bob Dylan in 1976 during the Rolling Thunder tour. I had a dream once that Bob Dylan and Woody Allen were the same person.