Netflix has released the first trailer for the upcomingBob DylandocumentaryRolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, which was indeed directed byMartin Scorsese. That’s right. The Netflix gangster dramaThe Irishmanisn’t the only movie Scorsese will release this year, as he also helmed an ambitious documentary about legendary musician Bob Dylan for Netflix.
The focus ofRolling Thunder Revueis on the 1975 cross-country tour that Dylan embarked on with a busload of musicians, which was marked by playful new creative techniques and a theatricality rarely seen in Dylan’s career. The film boasts footage that was previously abandoned for decades, now newly restored, along with present-day interviews with Dylan himself and folks likeJoan Baez,Sam Shepard,Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, andAllen Ginsberg.
This isn’t Scorsese’s first documentary, as he previously helmed the epic HBO music documentaryGeorge Harrison: Living in the Material World. The guy obviously knows his way around a story, but his passion for music also seeps through in these documentaries and I can’t wait to see what revelations await in this Bob Dylan documentary.
Watch theRolling Thunder Revuetrailer below, followed by the poster. The documentary premieres on Netflix and in select theaters on June 12th.
Here’s the official synopsis forRolling Thunder Revue:
Setting out across a 1975 America exhausted politically, economically and socially, a busload of musicians—assembled by Bob Dylan—hits the road in search of new creative horizons. The resulting tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, would reveal a Dylan rarely seen: playful, mask-wearing, intense, expansive, rejuvenated. Masterfully capturing both an icon and a nation in transition, director Martin Scorsese tells the tale using footage that was abandoned for decades, now gorgeously restored, taking viewers into the heart of a freewheeling, electrifying musical gamble. Inspired by Dylan’s own restless spirit, Scorsese performs some breathtaking sleight of hand, summoning nostalgic fantasists, boxers, magicians, starlets and testifiers of all stripes, and exploding the boundaries of what makes a conventional documentary.
An essential piece of mythic storytelling, Scorsese’s chronicle features Joan Baez, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Sam Shepard, Allen Ginsberg and, giving his first on-camera interview in a decade, Bob Dylan. ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE vibrates with the promise of America, a then-200-year-old experiment in a state of flux. The film goes beyond mere reclamation of some of the most extraordinary music of Dylan’s career—it’s a roadmap into the wild country of artistic self-reinvention.
Every one of Bob Dylan’s performances in the film can be found in the forthcoming box set,Bob Dylan - Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings, a comprehensive anthology of music from the tour to be released June 7 as a companion piece to the film. This 14CD, 148-track collection from Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings includes all five of Dylan’s full sets from that tour that were professionally recorded, and also provides the listener with an intimate insider’s seat for recently unearthed tour rehearsals at New York’s S.I.R. studios.
