Bob Dylan: The Never Ending Narrative 1990 – 2006

By Paul Casey

Despite my trepidation that The Never Ending Narrative, which documents Dylan’s commercial and critical comeback, would be another super cheap cash-in akin to Bob Dylan World Tour 1966: The Home Movies, I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it is still pretty cheap—the most direct interview subjects are a pair of engineers—but unlike that earlier movie, it actually has Dylan music! Although it is not exactly overflowing with it, there is just enough to hold things together. The majority of the film is taken up by a series of music journalists, most of who specialize in discussing Bob Dylan. Most of these are entertaining, clearly know their subject, and help disguise the film’s shortcomings.

Along with such noteworthy critics as Robert Christgau, there are Patrick Humphries, (The Complete Guide to Bob Dylan), Nigel Williamson, (The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan), Clinton Heylin (Dylan Behind the Shades), Anthony DeCurtis (Rolling Stone), Derek Barker (Isis Magazine), Johnny Rogen, and Andrew Mueller. A narration, read by Thomas Arnold, occasionally chimes in to fill in the gaps. I noticed one prominent factual error during the narration, which is dispiriting. The narrator proclaims during a segment on the Masked and Anonymous film from 2003, that Dylan “directed and starred,” when of course he did not. Ex-Seinfeld writer, and director of Borat and Religulous, Larry Charles did.

The critics make up for this hiccup, by managing to weave an engaging story of the various positives and negatives of Dylan’s work, from Oh Mercy up until 2006’s Modern Times. And while some of them are firmly within the stock obnoxious, self-satisfied, informed-but-clueless category of Dylan critic—music journalist Andrew Muller is the worst offender here—there are more than enough interesting and amusing perspectives to keep things ticking over. I particularly enjoyed listening to Johnny Rogen speak, as he found the right ground between relaying information and opinion.

Although the aforementioned engineers, Mark Howard (Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind) and Malcolm Burn (Oh Mercy), are the only direct relation to the music Bob Dylan recorded during this time period, their presence does result in some good anecdotes. Mark Howard, who is the more featured of the two, tells a wonderful story about the way in which the sound of Time Out of Mind came about: Dylan in a car, listening to old songs on the radio, asking Howard, “Why can’t I sound like that?”

The Never Ending Narrative is not high grade. Hell, it isn’t even mid-grade, but it’s not low-grade either. Owing mostly to this being a little-covered period of Dylan’s history and a nice chance to see some performances from that time, even if they are just snippets, and a solid selection of critics and writers, I enjoyed this. This is not one to buy at full price, but if you spy it in the bargain bin or see it on television, give it a look.

Bob Dylan: The Never Ending Narrative 1990 – 2006 was released by Chrome Dreams on April 19 and is available through See Of Sound.