Abstract

The article offers a rereading of Scorsese’s “No Direction Home” (2005, 2016,). The film replaces D. A. Pennebaker’s famous cinema verité, observational documentary “Don’t Look Back” (1967) about Dylan’s 1965 tour in Great Britain, which has proved, as years have passed, to be insufficient to convey the full story of Dylan’s personality behind his artistry. The article’s purpose, however, is not to cross-analyze the latter two documentaries. Instead, it provides a closer analysis of “No Direction Home” and explains how and why Dylan appears more appropriately different in this 2005 to 2016 production, while revealing the Scorsese–Dylan connection and commenting on the film in two interrelated fields: cinematic and documentary. The focus is not on Dylan, but on Scorsese. Therefore, the article puts the spotlight back to the original source of the Dylan–Scorsese union in “No Direction Home” (2005, 2016) and on Scorsese’s signature documentary and the re-authoring practices first conceived in Woodstock (1970), “The Last Waltz” (1978), and “The Blues” (2003).