Dylan in darkest America

In "Masked and Anonymous," this summer's strange and brilliant must-see film, an aging troubadour is the last gleam of hope in a corrupt and dictatorial nation.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Jul 24, 2003 | There are going to be people who will see "Masked & Anonymous" five times, if not 20, simply because there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people in this world who think, "When it comes to Bob Dylan, why do something just five times when you can do it 20?" They'll search the movie arduously for every in-joke and reference (and there are lots); they'll ponder it, fetishize it, pick it apart as if they were trying to figure out what makes a pocket watch tick.

But my advice is this: See it in one glorious shot, grab as much from it as you can and run like hell.

I say that not because I hated "Masked & Anonymous," but because I loved it. "Masked & Anonymous" -- which opens in New York on Thursday, in Los Angeles on Friday and thereafter in other cities -- is an exhilarating and sometimes puzzling jumble that explores the dangers of power, the nature of Americana and the Bob Dylan myth, among many, many other things. I think the picture is less complicated than it thinks it is -- although perhaps it's complicated in ways that not even its director, Larry Charles (who has worked as a writer and producer on shows like "Seinfeld" and "Mad About You," and directed several episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), or its star (and, reportedly, its screenwriter), Bob Dylan, would be able to explain. But one of the movie's wonders is the way it recontextualizes the work and legend of Dylan -- even at a time when we may begin wondering if there are any new contexts for Dylan at all. And another is the way it reminds us that Dylan is, first if not foremost, a guy with a sense of humor.

"Masked & Anonymous" is a sideways allegory about an alternative America, a what-if scenario in which our United States -- our republic -- is ruled by a president who looks more like a South American dictator. As is usually the case in countries run by dictators, his image is everywhere, hung with a mix of reverence and contempt. With his dark nail-brush mustache and his cheap white officer's suit, he suggests menace more than benevolence.

But in the world of "Masked & Anonymous," it's often impossible to tell who's good and who's bad. It's not made clear exactly what has happened in this new America, but we get the sense that sometime a while back, a group of people tried to change the world, and their efforts backfired. This is an America torn by civil war. Rebels open fire on country roads. Innocent people are imprisoned simply for valuing their freedom. The government controls the media, which is, incidentally, completely run by black men -- the shows in their lineup have names like "God's Mistake," "It's Alright, Man" and "Terror Tots" -- even though, of course, their power is only symbolic.

In the midst of all this, a sleazy concert promoter named Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman) and his manipulative, tough-as-bonded-nails colleague, Nina Veronica (Jessica Lange), are trying to organize a benefit for war relief -- or something. In reality, it's their own interests they have at heart. Unable to find a star headliner, they dig up a legendary has-been, an artist that Uncle Sweetheart used to manage (and take advantage of) back in the old days: Jack Fate (Dylan), who has long been imprisoned for an unknown crime.

Fate is a troubadour, an artist who, when he's not in jail, lives for the sheer thrill of taking his music on the road, bringing it to the masses. Released from his sentence so he can play the concert, he hits the road in a cowboy hat and a high-buttoned Hank Williams suit, with a guitar in one hand and a garment bag slung over his shoulder -- the uniform and accoutrements of the working musician. He looks dapper and fit in his Douglas Fairbanks mustache, seemingly none the worse for the wear after his stint in the clink. Before springing him, his jailer pronounces, "Keeping people from feeling free is big business," and it's just one of many places in "Masked & Anonymous" where you feel a song coming on -- at least in the metaphorical sense.

In fact, "Masked & Anonymous" is kind of like one long, messy Bob Dylan song -- or, more specifically, a dream version of a Bob Dylan song that folds in just about every motif he's ever written about. The intricacies and not-so-hidden evils of politics, the potency of religion and symbols, hypocrisy, love, betrayal: You name it, "Masked & Anonymous" has it.

Through it all, Dylan's Jack Fate wanders like a grizzled Candide. The great joke of "Masked & Anonymous" is that for once, everything Dylan says is clear and comprehensible; it's everyone else around him who's mad. He takes it all in, sometimes bemused and sometimes amused, and sometimes clearly angry. In one of the movie's funniest sequences, Uncle Sweetheart and Nina Veronica give Fate a list of songs the government has insisted he play (they include "Street Fighting Man" and "Eve of Destruction"). Later, they hand him the words to "Jailhouse Rock," but he brushes them away, obviously miffed beneath his cool demeanor. His explanation (as if he needed one) is like a deadpan sermon. He asks Sweetheart if he knows what cellulose is, and then goes on to explain. "It's in the grass. Cows can digest it, but you can't. And neither can I."

Fate's journey back into the outside world brings him into contact with a misanthropic animal freak (Val Kilmer), a ghost from his daddy's past (Ed Harris), a squeaky-mouse religious obsessive named Pagan Lace (Penelope Cruz, who is, for once, funny instead of merely annoying) and, perhaps the most brilliantly realistic character, an arrogant rock journalist (Jeff Bridges) who doesn't ask questions so much as spew fountains of opinion. The images in "Masked & Anonymous" highlight the ways the stuff of entertainment often becomes legend, and vice versa: There are allusions to circus sideshows, to the legacy of minstrelsy, to the legend of Staggerlee (who, famously, and for reasons no one knows, shot Billy Lyons down cold, even though Lyons pleaded for his life; in the "Masked & Anonymous" version, the murder weapon is Blind Lemon Jefferson's battered, mythic guitar, and it's used as an instrument of truth, justice and honor).

Next Page: "My Back Pages" in Japanese -- and an Italian rap version of "Like a Rolling Stone"

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