No direction home Analysis

The film starts with a gig, the character sings ‘like a rolling stone’. I realized that he is Bob Dylan, I don’t know what he looks like before but this song is a famous one. My first impression of this film clip is that it will be his autobiographical documentary.

The first series cut is common and nature and I don’t even need to think about it. However, the gig suddenly cut away to archival footage which is fog covered trees. The cut between the color footage of the gig and archive footage is not very nature because there is no transition.I think Schoonmaker wants to quickly bring us to the old days. Then, B role cut to old pictures with a background music. It is a source music because it comes from the spinning recorder player. The main function of the music is to create a believable time and the location in the documentary.

Later on, Bob talks about his past when he was a boy and he started playing guitar. The old clips match his voice and help us to understand why he takes up music. In the footage, there is an old fashion recorder, an old photo of young boy Bob and an old house. This scene helps me to understand how and what shaped Bob Dylan as a great musician. I guess this part of his life may have a huge influence.

After that, the archival footage cuts to his interview at present and he says ‘the sound of the music make him feels like he was somebody else’. And the music playing in the background is not his style. The next part of the film may create a contrast between his childhood and his present life.

The next scene is that he talks about his hometown and his father, footages of the street, the farmland, the mining place, photos of his father and the town show on the screen with a gentle blues music (not sure). I guess he will tell us some events at that time with his family in that small town.

The opening scene gives a foreshadowing of what is to follow later on in the film and it helps to develop expectations about what coming next in the story. The uses of his voice and the old clips hint at his backstory. This two minutes clip uses a lot of archival footages to represent his past, it makes me believe that he is telling the truth. These fuzzy and distort images and footages prove the passing time. We see bob talking on camera, but the interviewer is not showing on the screening while he asking questions. This technique leaves me an impression that he is talking to the audience directly. I think the rest of the story will continue to use the indirect interview.

I think after this opening scene he will talk about how a country boy becomes a future star, who influenced him, who helped him, and his up and down life. And I believe that the documentary will continue to use his music and the archival footages. I think the documentary may move to his present life and he may discuss how he consider his life now and what he will do in the future.

All these descriptions including photos, old footages, and interview establish a mood and the descriptive element exposes the important information that he will discuss the next. Dark background with the off-side lit face helps to build a static character Bob Dylan and we know that he is the main character who drive the story and the story may not be a happy story. Furthermore, this opening scene also indicates the different period of the life of Bob Dylan, and I guess the rest of film may talk about his life by arranging his event or date in order of it occurring. It may continue to use graphics like ‘many years earlier’ in the rest of film to represent time.