Expecting Rain

Apols if this has been posted anywhere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UrfXaH8 ... ture=share

So I'm watching this movie in pieces during the week, finally.

I'm a little over 1 hour in, and I love it.
It's unconventional, non-linear, etc. - to even call it 'experimental' seems too confining of a tag.

I'm wondering if Bob was influenced by John Cassavetes at all -- this cinema verite thing.

Also intrigued by the party/gathering scene of Bob's troupe and the American-Indian gathering.
Really strange chronology/sequencing on this one, if I recall correctly.
Neuwirth spends a chunk of time being obnoxious (and then he concedes he's just put "both feet" into his mouth when he says something inappropriate to some guy's mom) --
and then Bob enters like some kind of Messiah, according to the camera-eye. Maybe he's pointing out the freakishness of celebrity? "People see me all the time/and they just can't remember how to act" mebbe.

Conspiracy theory -

Perhaps the reason why R&C has not seen proper distribution on DVD
is because Sara blocked it after their divorce.
Maybe she didn't like how she was portrayed or how she acted in it.
In a very cryptic way, it's the visual depiction of a marriage unraveling.

Discuss.

The first thing you have to accept about "Renaldo And Clara" is that it is not a film "about" the 1975 tour. It is a movie about relationships and love and its many facets. Just like the movie that inspired it – "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise". "R & C" takes place in the world of rock music, "Children Of Paradise" takes place in the world of theatre, but "R & C" is not "about" rock music, just as "Children Of Paradise" is not "about" theatre.
As with all of Dylan's works (music, movies, literature, painting) you should not watch the movie and rate it based on your preconceived ideas of what it "should" be like. You should always regard Dylan's work as a journey that will teach you something. Often it teaches you something about something that you didn't even know existed.

The movie is a masterpiece in its original 4hrs version. But you need to watch it several times to understand the system that was used to construct the film. According to Alan Ginsberg the movie was edited based on a system Dylan had laid out on index cards. There are recurring themes and motifs (the rose, the lady in white, the use of certain colors, the use of masks, "reality" vs. stage etc. etc.). Each scene was assigned one of those themes/motifs and the movie was constructed along those lines. Furthermore one interpretation sees the whole movie as Renaldo's dream. Check the scene of Dylan as Renaldo "waking up" near the end of the movie. The dream interpretation would explain the dream-like flow of the film.

In order to get into the film it helps to study the movie that inspired it: the French movie "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise" (1945). A movie that also uses stage performances to comment on the relationships between the protagonists, just like "R & C". "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise" also is a very long movie (approx. 200 mins). The famous "Rolling Thunder Review" logotype was inspired by the opening title card of "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise". Both films feature one of the leading characters in whiteface, both have a "woman in white", both repeatedly use flowers as a prominent symbol, both alternate between on-stage, back-stage and "real life" scenes, the dialogue in "R & C" shares similarities with the dialogue in "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise" and both films use a cubist approach in that they present the main characters from the differing perpectives of the other characters.

You need to know "Les Enfants du Paradis/Children Of Paradise" in order to fully understand what "Renaldo And Clara" is all about.

I would like to get this film since I really totally love R&C. Any idea where to get an inexpensive English language DVD copy inside Europe?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enfants-Du-Para ... 094&sr=8-1

With English subtitles. I think there is no English language dubbed version.

Some information about the movie and its DVD releases:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Reviews/c ... se.htm#cop

Thanks, I thought to check UK amazon. Must check postage rate.
Even if it's English subtitles only, I want to see what Bob might have got from those.

Les enfants du paradis (German language version):

http://www.amazon.de/Kinder-Olymp-Arlet ... 668&sr=8-1

P.S.: The different running times indicated for different editions of the movie are a result of PAL conversions running slightly faster (2% I think) than NTSC copies (not a problem of this film, but a technical fact when converting between PAL and NTSC).

Check this:

http://softlyansleepy.blogspot.com/2011 ... radis.html

Also:

I have the criterion release here in region 1. It's in French, but i don't mind the english subtitles.