Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese

It wouldn't take much work to make a case for Dylan as a criminally underrated vocal stylist based on these performances alone, approaching each new song as one more masterpiece he can't stop painting over.

Martin Scorsese's masterful account of Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue contains predictable treasures, jolting surprises, and a mischievous sprinkle of untruths.

It is a great marriage of artist(s) and repertoire, and might slip past some people as just another talking head music doc. It's actually far more sly than that.

The true shock of Rolling Thunder Revue is in how good, how alive, Dylan is on stage.

Where Rolling Thunder Revue works best is when it's clear in its ambiguity.

With "Rolling Thunder Revue," [Martin] Scorsese remains at the top of his game, and is the perfect filmmaker to tell the story of a unique chapter in the life and career of a fellow creative legend.

It isn’t a Martin Scorsese picture, as viewers would see on the credits, but a story being told by Dylan himself in his confusional state that meshes with the freewheeling form of the actual shows.

The music is one thing, the persona another. I’ve never had much patience with the narrative of Unknowable Trickster Dylan, the shape-shifting enigma that defined a generation while making himself tantalizingly unknowable...

Scorsese’s new concert documentary film is sometimes moving, sometimes powerful musically, and almost always an entertaining piece of filmmaking, if not a head-scratching one.

Trying to parse truth from fiction ruins the fun of Rolling Thunder Revue. It is easier to succumb to the illusion.