Bob Dylan’s favourite Martin Scorsese movie: “I told him before”
The connection between Martin Scorsese and Bob Dylan is one of the more beautiful links between music and film. Scorsese is a noted lover of music, and perhaps, in another life, he might have been a musician.
Not only does he know how to pick the perfect songs for his films – who can forget ‘Be My Baby’ or ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ in Mean Streets? – but he has often dedicated whole films to musicians, like The Last Waltz, which saw The Band give their final performance. The documentary featured many popular artists, like Dylan, who Scorsese has since returned to several times.
In 2005, he made the film No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, documenting the folk icon’s life as one of music’s most important artists. Scorsese just can’t leave Dylan’s story alone, though, and he returned to him in 2019 for another documentary, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.
Dylan’s story has been adapted for the big screen in various interesting ways over the years, from his 1967 film Don’t Look Back to the gender-bending drama I’m Not There and, more recently, the Timothee Chalamet biopic A Complete Unknown. Yet, with his intense devotion to the artist, Scorsese’s documentaries are probably the most thorough explorations of Dylan as an artist, aided by the fact that the singer greatly admires the filmmaker.
Dylan once admitted while performing at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, “Martin Scorsese, he’s out there. He’s one of probably the best directors, ever.” The singer then revealed his favourite movie by the filmmaker, which is a rather controversial religious epic that even had Scorsese accused of blasphemy when it was released in 1988.
“My favourite movie, I told him before, is The Last Temptation of Christ,” Dylan revealed. “I think he’s gonna make one for the first temptation one of these days. Right, Marty? You just got to, for me,” he joked.
Starring Willem Dafoe as Jesus, the film follows the protagonist as he reckons with his own desires, and feelings of guilt and even lust in the face of his knowledge of being the son of God. It was certainly a bold idea to put to film, and unsurprisingly, many religious groups were outraged by the movie, which even sees Jesus indulge in temptations like sex.
The film spawned protests from angry Catholic groups, while a Parisian cinema screening the film was even set alight upon its release, causing various audience members to be seriously injured. This is the kind of thing that sadly happens when a controversial movie is released, so it’s not surprising that the picture was promptly banned for many years in certain countries.
Censorship is a preposterous thing, and Scorsese had to watch his movie be edited and prohibited from being screened, which must have hurt, especially considering the fans of the movie, including Dylan who is a very religious man himself.
At least he still found fans of the movie, with Dylan being a notable champion of the movie. It’s hardly surprising that he picks Scorsese’s most contested film as his favourite – the singer has never been one to avoid controversy.
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