Im Not There

The Artist and the Audience

Focus Questions (what you should be able to answer by the end)

1. How can we apply Freuds notion of projection to the films attitude towards the artist? 2. What are the machine guns symbolic of in relation to the artist/audience relationship? 3. How does the use of allusion support the wider idea presented by the machine gun sequence?

Insert clip of Jude and Keenan Jones arguing

Why do we want?
To paraphrase Jude, why should we care whether he cares? Why are we so interested in the artists attitude towards their fans? Why, when an artist abandons what we knew them for, do we seem to see ourselves as justified in being upset?

Projection
Freud had this belief that we will project false accusations, information, etc. onto an individual for the purpose of maintaining a self-created illusion. The illusion is that weve found someone who understands how we feel about the world and can articulate our thoughts about the world. The idea is that we will falsely accuse the artist of walking away from us, taking away that connection we once had, abandoning their beliefs, all in order to protect that initial illusion. We protect it because the only other alternative is to believe that we were wrong from the beginning and in fact the artist was not my kindred spirit.

Close Reading
Weve looked briefly at a key set of dialogue that raises this idea about obligation of the artist to the audience, now we want to look a little more at where this change came from in Dylans life and the specific reaction that came from the audience. The most striking representation of this is the re-creation of the Newport Folk Festival. Well have a watch, then well talk about what we see, then well have a look at what Haynes has to say about the sequence...

Insert clip of Newport Folk Festival

Symbolism: The Gun

The most striking piece of abstraction in the sequence in the use of the machine guns on the audience.

But what does this mean?

Have a go: - what is the intended effect? - how is the effect created? - what is the significance of this effect?

Digging Deeper
I wonder about the intention of the use of the gun in the sequence. I think it can easily be dismissed as a representation of Dylans feelings at the time. It can represent what the song says - he doesnt want to work on Maggies Farm anymore and is distancing himself in the most obvious way possible. The troubling aspect though is the connotations of the choice - this notion of an attack on the audience and this notion of a figurative act of murder.

Not Just Dylan

And so this isnt just a representation of how Dylan felt, but also how the moment impacted the audience.

We then have to ask ourselves to what extent is this just the perception of the event, rather than being based in any kind of emotional truth on Dylans behalf?
Was this intended as a moment of aggression on Dylans part, or is it the fault of the audience for perceiving it that way?

Music
Maggies Farm was an interesting choice on Dylans part, especially when combined with his playing of Like A Rolling Stone. If we have a look at the lyrics...

Directors Commentary
Hayness own opinion of the scene is quite interesting and raises a few interesting thoughts on what he was:

a) trying to do with the scene b) influenced by in the construction of the scene

Insert clip of Newport Folk Festival with Hayness director commentary

"the deification of a contemporary warrior-saint, the towering, preeminent idol bearing a deadly weapon as if protecting the mythical world of celebrity itself."

Interestingly...
"the deification of a contemporary warrior-saint, the towering, preeminent idol bearing a deadly weapon as if protecting the mythical world of celebrity itself."

The idea with the Warhol image is that Elvis is being deified, which means that he is being made into a God. Its this notion that we turn celebrities into gods, often without their permission. The idea being suggested in the Elvis image is that this creates a mechanism where celebrities work to hold on to and protect the image that is constructed for them. They are successful because of their image and so protecting the image is of primary importance.
We could argue that Haynes is taking this and turning it on its head.

Interestingly...
Why might I argue that Dylan is doing the opposite of what is being suggested in the Warhol painting? Why might it make sense to argue that this machine gun sequence is actually attacking this notion of deifying celebrities?

Interestingly...
As he expresses in both Maggies Farm and Positively 4th Street, he is frustrated by the machine that he has become a part of. He became part of a system that deified the image, or the idea, of an individual, rather than caring about the individual beneath that idea or image. People believed that they knew Dylan, they knew what he stood for, they knew his politics, etc. but in all honesty, all they knew was the image of him, or the representation of him. Now, a lot of artists bank on this, and they make money and become popular by representing something fixed, but Dylan hated this. One of my thoughts here as to the reason why is because it seems to deny an individual their humanity. They stop being a person and they become an image.

Allusion
The end of the sequence draws heavily on allusions to other texts. At the same time, the entire sequence is itself an allusion because we have to remember that Jude isnt Dylan, he is Jude. And so Judes storyline draws on this moment in history to shape it. And we know its not precisely biographical because, as Haynes talks about in the commentary, he is drawing on this mythological moment in his construction of Jude Quinn. And the very idea of mythology is really important to this sequence. Haynes draws on myth rather than relying solely on fact. We get presented with the image, the very thing that Dylan was reacting against.