I think all of this speculating on why he wasn't more articulate during interviews really misses the point. He hated them, pure and simple. He, like many great artists as well as most others, was much more comfortable in small groups. He kept saying over and over, in his music as well as when speaking, that he didn't want any mantle or didn't want to be cast as the leader of any movement. And last but not least, he was all of 23 or so when most of the footage shown was taking place. He was very obviously uncomfortable and embarrassed by the role was being forced to play as well as all the attention. Nobody I know likes to talk about the creative processes they go through when they are doing something they love, least of all in front of large groups. How many could have done any better at that point in their lives? The Beatles gave the same goofy kinds of interviews at the start of their careers, but they at least had the advantage of having each other for some moral support.
In the more recent interviews he was clearly more at ease, but those were done only talking to the one person who was interviewing him, or at least that was the impression I got.
Sal
On Sep 28, 2005, at 9:04 AM, authfriend wrote:
> But when the performance was over, the Gift
> departed and would not translate itself into
> any other form. So Dylan was left inarticulate,
> ordinary, not interesting at all.
His recent autobiography, however, has received
pretty good reviews. A section of a chapter about
New Orleans was just posted on the Web, and I thought
it was fascinating--not just about New Orleans but
about Dylan himself, in terms of how he saw New
Orleans (before the flood, obviously). Maybe the
ability to do words without music has developed
gradually; or maybe he has no trouble writing, just
speaking.
