Product Description

The Other Side of the Mirror - DVD

Few performances in history are as legendary - or as controversial - as Bob Dylan's 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. In a single, galvanizing instant, Dylan plugged an entire generation in, forever changing not only the way the music was made, but the way it was heard. By putting you in the audience for Dylan's Newport performances from 1963 through that pivotal set in 1965, Academy Award®-winning director Murray Lerner's The Other Side Of The Mirror captures Dylan's metamorphosis from the folk family's best-kept secret to rock's fiercely confrontational poet who would electrify an entire nation and become the voice of his generation.

CHAPTER LIST

All I Really Want To Do (7/24/1965) - afternoon workshop

1963

North Country Blues

With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)

Talkin' World War III Blues

Who Killed Davey Moore?

Only A Pawn In Their Game

Blowin' In The Wind (with The Freedom Singers, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary)

1964

Mr. Tambourine Man

Johnny Cash sings Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Joan Baez sings Mary Hamilton as Bob Dylan

It Ain't Me, Babe (with Joan Baez)

With God On Our Side (with Joan Baez)

Chimes Of Freedom

1965

If You Gotta Go, Go Now

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Maggie's Farm (electric)

Like A Rolling Stone (electric)

Mr. Tambourine Man

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Bonus Feature: Interview with director Murray Lerner

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10372 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Best of, Dubbed, DVD, Live, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, English, Italian, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

Amazon.com
Matched only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan continues to captivate music and pop culture fans with a seemingly never-ending stream of new and old recordings, books, documentaries, feature films, and more. The Other Side of the Mirror - Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 is a worthy addition to the canon; whether this 83-minute compilation will serve to illuminate the Dylan myth or merely perpetuate it is open to question, but without a doubt there's plenty of fascinating material here. There are nearly 20 songs represented, covering three consecutive years of Dylan appearances at the famed Rhode Island festival. Some have been seen before (most recently in No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's 2005 Dylan doc, and in Festival, a Newport chronicle released on DVD that same year and directed by Murray Lerner, who is also responsible for The Other Side of the Mirror). Some are from Dylan's daytime "workshops," others from his nighttime main stage performances. Some are complete, others oddly truncated. Some are terrific (like "Chimes of Freedom," 1964), others not so much (cf. the turgid "With God on Our Side" from '63, with Joan Baez adding shrill harmony). In any case, these were the years when Dylan assumed the mantle of "spokesman of a generation," whether he wanted it or not. We see him evolving from the earnest young protest singer of '63 to the visionary artist of the following year who, with the astonishing torrent of rhymes, alliterations, symbols, and brilliant turns of phrase in "Chimes" and "Mr. Tambourine Man," turned the whole notion of songwriting on its ear. And, of course, we also witness Dylan's turn from acoustic to electric guitar, when he was joined onstage by members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (sans Butterfield himself) in 1965; only two songs from that legendary (and, at the time, infamous) gig are seen here, and viewed four decades after the fact, neither "Maggie's Farm" nor "Like a Rolling Stone" is all that special, notwithstanding some searing solo work by guitarist Mike Bloomfield. The DVD package, which includes a bonus interview with Lerner and a nice booklet with liner notes by Tom Piazza, adds to the appeal of what has to rank as a must-have for Dylanologists of every stripe. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Well worth the purchase
An absolutely essential addition to any Dylan aficionado's collection, since the majority of this footage is never-before-seen. The Love Minus Zero and Talkin' World War III Blues performances seen here in particular are spine-chilling.

However, since this film was for big-time Dylan fans, some of the edits are inexplicable. Some intros are left out, but there's a more serious drawback. It includes two versions of Mr. Tambourine Man: one from 1964, before the song was released, as performed during the afternoon workshop, and the other from 1965, after the infamous electric set performed in the evening. NONE of them are complete. The first is missing the third verse, while the fourth is missing the first harmonica break and the last verse. I know the producer has his reasons, like artistic integrity, but c'mon, they know who the audience for this DVD is...

Also, why couldn't the missing songs from Newport 1963 and 1964 be seen, at least via bonus tracks, in case they were worried about too much song duplication in the film itself?

But it's still an excellent time capsule and one of the best music DVD's of the year, if not the last few. The sharp criticisms are only because how important this DVD is.

Some Of The Best Footage Ever Shot...
This disc has been hyped for the famous "booing" when he went electric. My take after watching, is buy it for the first 5 songs from the 1963 section. Even though these tracks are acoustic, Dylan really showed his incredible songwriting talent. That footage will go down in history. The 1964 stuff is a step down (last 2 songs are pretty good) The famous 1965 stuff is over-rated. The jangly "Maggie's farm", is alright, but seems a little tense. "Like A Rolling Stone", is virtually flawless. Why anyone would boo that version, is beyond me. The last song, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is incredible(Crank this one up). This disc is beyond historic.

Dylan the way I want to remember him
I'm not a big Bob Dylan fan, but I am a fan of great looking and sounding DVD's and this is both. There's no DTS but man, the sound is crystal clear. The video quality is amazing too. It's black and white but it doesn't look grainy. You clearly see a young Dylan playing his music the way it was meant to be played. This movie is a perfect trip down memory lane even if you were too young to remember it. If you're a Dylan fan, I promise you will love this. Its destined to become a classic.