Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Other Side of the Mirror – encore, encore…

Thanks to John Carvill:

“I agree of course that the Newport footage was great, but did the BBC really show all of Murray Lerner's film? Weren't quite a few performances truncated?

“To coin a phrase, is that all there is?”

(The promo for the DVD claims the film runs for 80 mins – the same timing as the BBC FOUR broadcast; and I wasn’t aware of any Dylan cuts, though Cash and Baez were truncated - thankfully. But the DVD claims a bonus interview with director Murray Lerner, so maybe there is additional material on the disc. Please let The Dylan Daily know if what you see on the DVD differs from the TV broadcast. Gerry Smith, Ed.)



And thanks to Martin Cowan:

“I too enjoyed the film but would disagree with your picking out of "Chimes of Freedom" as the highlight.

“This song has always sounded to me like a dry run for such torrents of imagery like "Tambourine Man", and the performance here was too hectoring, with Dylan ironing out the melody to such an extent that much of the song was delivered on the same note.

“No, for me "North Country Blues" and "If You Gotta Go" were highlights, along with the 4 song closing set - including in my view a superior live version of "Rolling Stone" to the 1966 vintage, even with the couple of fluffs going into the final verse.

“Genius!”



(Reminder for Brit readers who missed it on Sunday: The Other Side of the Mirror is being repeated tonight, Wednesday, at 0030, and on Saturday evening at 2350 on BBC FOUR. Gerry Smith, Ed.)