I had no idea that most of this "documentary" was fake until, after watching it, I read the user reviews on here. (Thanks to you all.)
As a documentary filmmaker who is currently making a rock music film (the whole reason I watched it), I want to say what Scorsese did here is deeply unethical and completely unacceptable.
When you are making a documentary you are on a knife edge creatively of wanting to show the "truth" as you saw it, and not wanting to unnecessarily make anyone embarrassed by what you show the world. It is a constant argument in your head (and with the band, if they have a say, which they should).
What Scorsese does here is asinine and without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Watching it I thought, "Wow, these contemporary interviews are crap"... then to find out they are completely fake takes it to a whole other level.
I am not just "okay" but gleefully celebrate Borat's adventures in pseudo-documentary filmmaking, because 1) it has a point 2) the targets aren't in on the joke and 3) it's deeply funny.
The fake stuff in this movie is just dumb. It's dumber than Dumbo. And it is deliberately done so subtly that an average viewer couldn't possibly have any idea that they are being fed lies. In fact the "target" of this movie's satire, if we can call it that (it's a stretch) is the vast majority of people who will watch it and not know better. It's a sneering-at-the-audience version of Borat, where Scorsese is getting off on the fact that he can bulls**t us all into believing stuff that never happened.
This movie is intrinsically related to the metastasis of trump in America in 2020, where you can convince anybody of anything with sleight of hand and shape people's reality as they perceive it, and do so completely cynically, without any purpose whatsoever except to laugh at the "simpletons" who don't move in the elite circles and so can't tell heads from tails.
I am giving it 2 stars instead of the -1,000 it deserves ethically because the footage of the band live is incendiary... these are the best live performances I've ever seen of Dylan. If you cut out all the lies and just strung the real stuff together, however clumsily, it would be one of the best live rock n roll movies ever made. That doesn't in the slightest excuse the arrogance of Scorsese concocting the idea of a completely false, completely unfunny (and unfunny for a reason: because that would give it away to the audience that he has such contempt for) narrative to present the amazing live footage in.
As a documentary filmmaker who is currently making a rock music film (the whole reason I watched it), I want to say what Scorsese did here is deeply unethical and completely unacceptable.
When you are making a documentary you are on a knife edge creatively of wanting to show the "truth" as you saw it, and not wanting to unnecessarily make anyone embarrassed by what you show the world. It is a constant argument in your head (and with the band, if they have a say, which they should).
What Scorsese does here is asinine and without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Watching it I thought, "Wow, these contemporary interviews are crap"... then to find out they are completely fake takes it to a whole other level.
I am not just "okay" but gleefully celebrate Borat's adventures in pseudo-documentary filmmaking, because 1) it has a point 2) the targets aren't in on the joke and 3) it's deeply funny.
The fake stuff in this movie is just dumb. It's dumber than Dumbo. And it is deliberately done so subtly that an average viewer couldn't possibly have any idea that they are being fed lies. In fact the "target" of this movie's satire, if we can call it that (it's a stretch) is the vast majority of people who will watch it and not know better. It's a sneering-at-the-audience version of Borat, where Scorsese is getting off on the fact that he can bulls**t us all into believing stuff that never happened.
This movie is intrinsically related to the metastasis of trump in America in 2020, where you can convince anybody of anything with sleight of hand and shape people's reality as they perceive it, and do so completely cynically, without any purpose whatsoever except to laugh at the "simpletons" who don't move in the elite circles and so can't tell heads from tails.
I am giving it 2 stars instead of the -1,000 it deserves ethically because the footage of the band live is incendiary... these are the best live performances I've ever seen of Dylan. If you cut out all the lies and just strung the real stuff together, however clumsily, it would be one of the best live rock n roll movies ever made. That doesn't in the slightest excuse the arrogance of Scorsese concocting the idea of a completely false, completely unfunny (and unfunny for a reason: because that would give it away to the audience that he has such contempt for) narrative to present the amazing live footage in.