From 60 Minutes to 20/20

Yes,very good,indeed. With this dvd you will be given a nice slice of the man's thoughts. Bob's voice is cool enough for me to listen to,but he's also very insightful here. His reputation as being vague or dishonest( and he'll admit it)doesn't seem to apply so much with these interviews.This point could be argued more with the 60 minutes interview than the 20/20 one.However,I did find both to be real. What's "real" is up for interpretation.

The highlight for me is the 20/20 raw interview. It's like sitting on the beach with Bob Dylan. Just listening to the waves crashing while he's talking is ...well-"real" nice. The ocean is an excellent supporting character to a rather natural interview.

Overall,I think it's worth getting and that's what the reviews are for. So,thumbs up here. Enjoy!!

D468 FROM 60 MINUTES TO 20/20

Functional menu and three subdivided chapters as follows:

(1) CBS 60 MINUTES, 5 Dec 2004 (16:00)

In which clips of an interview between a phlegmatic but resolutely downbeat D and 60 Minutes journo Ed Bradley (who, though a month younger than Bob, passed away in November 2006) are intercut with the usual TV-package filler - excerpts from DLB, the SF '65 press conference, R&C, Bangladesh, MTV Unplugged, Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame and stock period footage (civil rights etc). This is allegedly (though not actually - see D010) D's first TV interview in twenty years. That it takes place at all is thanks to the publication of Chronicles, put out by Simon & Schuster, owned by Viacom, the parent company of CBS (so, in spite of himself, Bob Goes Corporate). Though not too much is revealed, you can generally depend on D for a couple of nice lines:

Some people get born ... to the wrong names, wrong parents. That happens.

The press, they're not the judge. God's the judge.

This item also circulates on D466.a, D516, D552, D556 and D640 with eleven minutes of interview out-takes on D731.

(2) 20/20, ABC, 10 Oct 1985 (18:50)

(Note: most of what follows is lifted from the review of D248, on which disc this material also features.)

An extended TV package in sub-pristine (though okay) quality that rambles through D's back pages from Greenwich Village to Farm Aid. Occasional editorial liberties – suggesting that '65 live footage comes from '61, then '81 footage from '79; also describing Hard Rain as "a vision of nuclear apocalypse" which D had always denied – but entertaining enough. Includes several short excerpts from a 19 September Malibu interview by Bob Brown. D's words, blowin’ in the buffeting Pacific wind, include an arresting description – spirits dressed up in a suit of skin - of us all, then, concerning himself, this frank admission: I have very little belief in myself to do anything. The usual sprinkling of familiar clips - R&C, Farm Aid, the abysmal Night Comes Falling promo - is stirred in too, of course. The piece ends with an impromptu rehearsal-room Forever Young played by Bob specially for the cameras. TV being the trivialising, reductive medium it is, though, having once bagged the film, don't then expect them to show you too much of it. Not enough time for that.

(3) 20/20 BOB BROWN INTERVIEW, 19 Sept 1985 - RAW FOOTAGE (52:00)

The contrast between what's here and what's eventually shown on TV (previous chapter) is illuminating. If this was tidied up and transmitted straight, you'd offer the viewer a far more rewarding look at this supposedly reclusive personality - here affably accommodating and open - than the slick but superficial package finally broadcast. I may be ill-placed to comment. When it comes to Bob, I have an attention span longer than thirty seconds, whereas the average viewer (perhaps no Dylan fan at all) may well not. Still it looks to me like unnecessary dumbing down. Though picture quality is good, video recording stops in several places with audio continuing under a blank grey screen. Of his songs, D says that the best ones are "written very quickly", also that (even though he may still sing them three or four decades later) they’re "done for the moment", also that they don't "come off on paper" but have to be "listened to". Live Aid? "We were sabotaged." Oh, and there's "a Messianic Kingdom coming." When? "About 200 years."

THANKS Nelson
STARS Of interest, certainly, though peripheral more than essential. Three.

This DVD has both the 60 Minutes Interview from December 2004 and the 'raw' video from the Dylan 20/20 Interview in 1985, the DVD is authored. I really like having the 2 Interviews together, it is a natural combination _ THEN and NOW.
Put this DVD on your Christmas wish list from your favorite Bob Santa.