Expecting Rain

The footage could maybe do it in a movie where we knew the characters
As a short film it is a weak shot at Tarantino, Bukowski, Godard or whatever land
but it is really a bunch of nontalented cliches.
Put together with music that has previously been used to promote television series True Blood
it works less with the music than that
You could just as well put it together with a Sepultura song
or "Without You" by Mariah Carey

Bob, Colombia or whoever's idea this was probably wanted to be controversial
and thus sell more records
but it will probably just provoke people on message boards like this.
It's just a sign of these faltering times, it is

This video is awful and I will probably never watch it again. The depictions of violence were really disturbing. Frankly, I don't know what it has do with the song.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive social problem in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). IPV results in an estimated 1,200 deaths and 2 million injuries among women each year (MMWR, 2008). Extensive research indicates that IPV poses a significant risk to the physical health of women and it has been associated with increased mortality, injury and disability, poorer health, and other health-related consequences (Plichta, 2004; Tjaden, & Thoennes, 2000).

I'm very offended with the 'Cross the Green Mountain video! Who dares to put war images and dead people in a music video? So disgusting...

Seriuosly, this video is fine. Love (sick love), hate, blood and sex. A bad guy, yes, and a brave blonde. It's hyperbolic, of course, as someone said (so hyperbolic that it's kinda funny). It remembers me a lot the sick relation that Rimbaud and Verlaine had (again: love, hate, sex and blood: the gun shot in the hand). And a TV serie called Killer Women (Mujeres Asesinas), who had worst images than this video (and were all real stories).

After that, I'm not saying that violence is nice, in the same way that I didn't said that war is nice after reading the Iliad... (although I'm with the trojans)

Some people goes with the fides poetica too far, like that european king who killed an actor because his character was too evil.

The first time I saw it, I couldn't make it through. I have a daughter who is now a young woman, and that turned me off. I couldn't even watch it after about a minute. When I learned about the entire plot, I checked it out a couple of times. What finally struck me is the cartoon/realist nature of the thing (done in a black comedy fashion). Someone gets knocked out, and should be left for dead, but comes right back with nary a scratch, let alone blood. I mean, she hit him with a car, after stabbing him in the gut, and he's still fine. He threw her head first into a TV, and starts to drag her off, yet she comes back unscathed.

I don't see this as condoning violence, but rather as a representing symbolically (& outrageously) how a couple can torture each other. Whether someone thinks the ending is predictable or not is besides the point. In an abusive relationship, there is (unfortunately) eventually forgiveness, which only enables this type of behavior to the next level the next time it happens. It still feels disturbing, but maybe that's a good thing.

Just my opinion here, and I respect anyone who was generally offended by violence against women. I am too, but this thing is more of a back & forth progression which actually does tie in with the song. If it wasn't so effective, it wouldn't have generated this much of response. I mean, hell, I'm actually posting something.

Don't shoot me.

I'd respect them more if they were offended by violence against people.

I am quite sure that Bob takes no interest in the marketing that is done by Sony. Yes, controlling the quality and content of the music is one thing but he and his staff, I am sure, have nothing to do with exploitation by the label. The video looked cheap as well as amateurish, which is probably why they used it, the tossers. If it had been good theater, the content could have been interesting and provocative, not just sorted and ugly. Remember in Don't Look Back when Bob refused to take responsibility for the guy who threw the glass out the window, "I have enough responsibility with my friends and my people..." I am happy they realized we are not just sheep who will take any crap they want to dish out. We are opinionated and really very smart. We stood together and forced them to take some responsibility for the lack of quality of their lets face it - merchandising. Sony, Bob doesn't need any of your bull shit merchandising. Screw Sony.

There are two threads here on this topic, and I posted on the other one. Here I'd just like to point out that I have been unable to log in to bobdylan.com, which has only 22 comments on the video. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, I can only assume that they are trying to forstall a deluge of complaints.

If in fact Dylan had nothing to do with this video and was not asked about it before release, given its content, then I hope the marketing people responsible for it are sacked and need to go out and work for a living. Maybe then they'll begin to understand the meaning of Dylan's songs as most of the rest of us understand them.

I'll leave the 'artistic merit' discussion (symbolic meaning? no blood?) to those of you who seem to enjoy that sort of thing, but bear in mind: unless you have experienced real violence, you are not qualified to objectify it.

hey-b_b_g-
i am definitely convinced that ~My Wife's Home Town~ is about (addiction to) heroin or crack,but having never done either, im not sure which might better fit the hell described in the lyrics,what do you think?

also, i did watch the video (without any sound-i wasnt willing to risk anything messing with my love of a song that i initially hated but has become my fave on the album,followed by S S Mama)
and perhaps i was way over prepared (highly possible) BUT i just found it- L A M E
-not really even worth trying to figure out!

re: together thru life video


yuck -- watching it once is more than enough. Visually, it is ambiguous at best - amoral and nonjudgmental regarding the actions portrayed. Its rather like a surrealistic cartoon. But then I guess that's the point: beyond here lies nothin . . .

Tom & Jerry / Itchy & Scratchy.

Join the dots.

What he says at the start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVXdksxv ... re=related

I finally watched this, and wished I hadn't bothered. It was well made, and reminded me of a few films, but not actually any films I like.

Still it's a promo, and I guess it's doing its job.

Yeah! If it wasn't for Sony and Columbia... Bob Dylan would be famous!

If they have the "comment" turned off it may be because they don't want 10,000 variations of the same lame-ass knee-jerk "violence against wimmin" comments like on these threads.

Just saw the video for the first time, a few thoughts...

If we assume that the purpose of a music video - that is its ontological purpose, not its commercial purpose - is to provide visual accompaniment to the music that resonates with the form and content of the song either graphically or thematically, then that is the reason this is bad video. It does neither. Nothing to do with the violent content.

Its main flaw is it insists on using long handheld camera shots in a song with a very prominent rhythm. If the images are not cut in time to the music in the editing room then individual shots must have an internal rhythm that matches song. For example, if Beyond Here Lies nothing settles at a steady 100bpm, then to make music and image resonate with each other there should be around about 25 cuts per minute, or a cut per bar. If shots are to be longer in duration they must have an internal graphic rhythm - think dancing feet or passing traffic. Thus, in Beyond Here lies Nothing, the music and images seem to become more and more disparate as the song progresses; we either become absorbed in the narrative of the video or we forget the images and listen to the song. In the ideal music video they should appear inseparable, as if both music and image were creating each other.

People have already discussed the thematic content of the video, so I won't go into any detail. It seems the intention was to perversely exaggerate the positive sentiments of the love story in the song, and create a striking visual metaphor for the pain that lovers cause each other. This however is giving the video the benefit of the doubt and there is certainly not enough thematic resonance to make up for the lack of formal resonance.

Think Subterranean Homesick Blues - it works because there are unavoidable formal and thematic resonances between music and image. The cards create an internal rhythm that matches the song and the content of the cards inevitably recreates the thematic content of the song in the most simple graphic manner.

Your comment on editing is ridiculous. It has an underlying assumption that is thoroughly false - that there is this preferred or privileged style of editing that the video must adhere to. The editing you suggest would produce an annoying cliched video.

As regards the matching of the visual content with the content of the song; the notion that "beyond here lies nothing" is an obvious statement of a certain sort of nihilistic outlook on the world, one that matches up quite well with a tale of dead-end violence.

Genius? No, but then neither is the song. Good? I'd say so.

You put it very well, LJ, as you often do.

I think it works precisely because it doesn't "match up" with 25 cuts per minute etc and because the story has nothing to do with the lyric content--except in regards to it's tone, which seems to me quite well matched.

Perhaps what I wrote seemed too prescriptive. No, I don't think it should have 25 cuts per minute or be synchronized precisely with the song - of course, that would be trite and obvious.
However, you cannot deny that there is no formal link whatsoever between the song and the video. Try watching it with any other song of a similar length, it will work as well if not better than Beyond Here Lies Nothing. The only formal connection between the two is the snare drum kiss cliche at the end.

The video isn't a music video. It is not a visual representation and accompaniment of music; it is a rather crap short film.

EDIT: Perhaps this can explain better than I. A perfect marriage of music and image, each essential to each other:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5a5u1_koyaanisqatsi_shortfilms

EDIT 2: I playing the video with a few songs of exactly the same length and found that it works quite well with Raekwon's Criminology, Ry Cooder's Which Came First and Springsteen's Restless Nights. Now where did I leave my copy of Dark Side and Wizard of Oz...

The video is disturbing, but of course so is Dylan's music more times that we can count. Just when we sort of get settled with ourselves, we know we should be in for a bit of shake-up - certainly this latest album is filled with dark and disturbing visions of an America that has lost its moral way, if it was ever there to begin with. The video just brings it closer to the surface - maybe too close. It doesn't sensationalize or romanticize a violent relationship, no, not at all - it's not witty or amusing or even enticing, it's none of that. In the end we're left with a shocking twist - we all assume the man is dominating the woman, that he's captivated her, but at the end she get's the best of him so he's the captive and the only thing that is certain is that beyond here lies nothing.

It certainly isn't all that peace and love of Obamarama.

bb

It's not a video, it's a short film. There's a difference and honestly I think that might be the biggest mistake people are making, causing
this to be the major issue of Dylan security it's turned out to be.

It fits the song perfectly, from the (ironic?) opening line and shot of the guy to the moment when she gets in the car and Bob sings "Well my ship is in the harbour" and ends with the kiss after the "nothing done and nothing said". Note too the boat pictures on the walls of the apartment that foreshadow the last verse.

I don't have a problem with the images in the video per se, but it doesn't fit with the lyrics, the tone of Bob's voice or the mood of the song. It's just downright strange.

Directed? He couldn't direct a greasy stick up a bear's ass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhtn3N9eOI&NR=1

this is the video footage they should've used, this will stir up buried feelings and bring 'em exploding to the surface, of course everyones knee jerk reactions will take different avenues of expression...domestic abuse takes on many forms from verbal, to ignoring each other, to physical violence, and it is on the rise...but seriously none of this has anything to do with love...we are at war...



My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.


Martin Luther King Jr.

April 4, 1967

It's war. Yea baby!