Damn straight I'm reviewing Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart to close out this 22 reviews in 22 weekdays during October project I set before myself.
Above, Must Be Santa Claus, and yes, that is Bob Dylan rocking out with the Polka arrangement (first done by Brave Combo). Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on your accordion tolerance level), there are no other polka versions on this album, one is unexpected campy fun, more wouldn't be.
Given that all the songs are well known standards that just about every major commercial artist under the sun has taken a crack at, there are a few questions any performer has to ask of themselves before hitting the recording booth (unless they're just after a holiday-themed paycheck, in which case, the only question is how to promote the sucker and get prominently displayed in all the major retailers).
Those questions:
What would be unique about my performance? Do I love and respect this material? Will my existing fans enjoy this excursion down nostalgia lane? Will this appeal beyond my own fan base?
As far as Dylan goes, I think only one of those questions mattered to him personally, and that is, "Do I love and respect this material?", and his answer is a pure unadulterated yes. I don't think there's ever been a more sincerely felt Christmas album released, period. There's a palpable sense that Dylan loves this music with a simple, open hearted sincerity.
As far as the other questions go, "What would be unique about my performance?", well, Dylan's vocal style, matched with these ultra traditional arrangements is definitely unique. Whether that's a plus, or a minus, is up to each listener to judge. For me, while the concept seems discordant, the results are harmonious. The super slick and old fashioned arrangements are at such odds with his gravelly and eccentric phrasing, that there's an unexpected tension brought to every line that's sung. His presence brings a new context to each of these songs, even as he presents them in the most traditional of arrangements and orchestrations.
As far as the third and fourth question, "Will my fans like it, and will I attract new fans", I think this album will be considered a failure. Dylan fans aren't likely to appreciate how sincerely he loves the kind of music that they themselves likely sneered at as teens and adults back in the 60s and 70s. Like his excursion into Gospel and Country, that Dylan is not the Dylan that most Dylan fans adore and respect. The people that would enjoy the unabashedly pre-rock era feel to the musical arrangement (and especially the back-up singers, who sound borrowed from Mitch Miller, or Lawrence Welk) will be turned off by Dylan's gravelly growl.
Personally, I like the tension between these two things, a straight up Dylan folk album has no appeal to me personally, but neither does a traditional Christmas album with a sweeter voiced singer in the lead. This jarring melding of two styles that would seem to have little in common, or little likelihood of mating easily, actually gives this album its appeal.
This album succeeds (at least to my ears), because of Dylan's sincerity. If there was a hint of ironic detachment, or if it seemed Dylan was just trying to cash in on Christmas spending, this would be a disaster. There's none of that, the title of the album is apt, Dylan loves this music, wholeheartedly, if he didn't have "Christmas in the Heart", he wouldn't have been able to pull this off. There are moments that almost sound ridiculous, but Dylan's enthusiasm saves him from sounding like a bizarre karaoke act.
I think it's that sincerity that turns off some reviewers (like the one Althouse linked when the album was released two weeks ago), but that review was a review of the concept of a Dylan Christmas album rather than the particular execution of such a project. There is no conceivable convergence of Christmas album and Bob Dylan that a reviewer like that one would have liked, so he used his review as an excuse to try out a few one-liners.
This album's not for everyone, but, it's unique, and once you get past the shock of the concept of it, I think it begins to make sense, and it has the benefit of being the product of an unaffected joy, coupled with love of the material. That kind of purity of purpose you don't come across every day when shopping for Christmas tunes. So, you could do worse, or you could dig up the original versions of these tunes if you can't get past his voice with these songs, but as a collection of traditional tunes, presented affectionately and passionately, you aren't going to do better.
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Here goes my review, on the Millidargis scale of review uselessness and pretentiousness, I'd probably rate my own review that follows a 1500 or so, it's pretty useless as far as reviews go, but this kind of movie can only be discussed in obtuse and tangential ways. I'd rate AO Scott's review of the film a mere 650 millidargis, he actually writes a pretty straightforward piece on the picture (I so wanted to rip apart another pretentious Dargis review regarding this difficult but rewarding picture, but alas, she didn't pen one).
It's a worthwhile picture, it's a difficult picture, and it's a beautiful picture. One measure of the quality of a film is how many people walk out on it. That may seem like an odd measure of a film's worth, but I find the truly unusual, daring, and challenging films often cause walk outs. This film managed to cause 3 of the 16 people who chose to spend a late morning/early afternoon on a blustery but sunny Saturday on the glorious Westside of Los Angeles to walk out well before the final credits. In some ways they didn't miss much, in other ways they just didn't get it, and it's their loss.
Using 6 different actors (from a young black boy, to an amazing Cate Blanchett) to represent different aspects of Dylan's persona, his relationship to his music, and his relationship to his fame was a stroke of genius. Either that or it's a showy, 'auteur' trick that is designed to frustrate the 'squares' and excite the psuedo-intellectuals. I fall on the side of calling it genius, but I sympathize with those that read the film as being arty for art's sake to little effect.
I hate biopics, normally, but thankfully this was the most abnormal biopic ever made. This film is the template from which all future artists bios should be created. People familiar with Dylan's life will recognize moments (which being a non-fan, I only know tangentially), others may be perplexed, but the film works because of its disjointedness rather than despite of it. Rather than the usual narrative driven exploration of an artist's life (like Ray, or Walk the Line), this film digs behind the masks, behind the music (sorry VH1), and behind the culture from which the artist sprang.
Todd Haynes is a masterful director who has made some of the most interesting pictures out there of the past decade or so. This film plays like a 2hr15min music video that doesn't have a lot of music, or a series of six separate and very different shorts interleaved together despite lacking any strong throughline between one piece to the next.
The performances are strong, especially Cate Blanchett, who has received attention mainly for the gender-bender-iness of her performance, but the strength of her performance is in the acting, not in the fact that she's playing somebody who happens to have a penis. Oddly, her performance is the most imitative of Dylan, yet it's an imitation with an edge, she doesn't occupy his cadences and mannerisms circa 1965 for the usual reasons (in biopics, the actor's portrayal usually seems to be built from the surface inward, believing that if you capture the surface similarities between an actor and their subject, the inner truth will follow), instead she seems to be working from the inside out. By being like him from an emotional standpoint she represents his surfaces also. It's hard to explain, but it's there, you can see it on the screen if you choose to look for it.
This film is worthing catching on a good screen, it's filmed gorgeously, and unfolds slowly, it would be tempting while watching at home on DVD to pause, or backtrack, or break it up in to more digestable bits, but I think you'd get the most out of this pic by watching it the way Haynes put it together.
It's a shame nobody seems to want to see this picture, difficult and box office (even the lower standards of 'indie box office hit' standards) don't mix.
