Roger Ebert at Telluride on Dylan

Here's part of a letter I sent a friend:

At Telluride I overheard Roger Ebert saying he had just seen all three and a half hours of "No Direction Home" and "it completely turned me around. I used to think Dylan was just a jerk," he said, "but this showed who he really is." Having now seen it myself (albeit through a fog of vicodin, extra strength, no less, necessitated by a root canal), I agree. It's weird for me because Dylan kind of belongs to my mother. She's been a huge fan of his and Neil Young's for oh, the last 20 years or so, but more fervently over time. So aside from the hours I spent listening to John Wesley Harding (my favorite) and Blonde on Blonde as a kid, and hearing all the other stuff along the way, I never delved deeper into his music (not the way I did The Who or the Stones). There's a lot there! That film made me tremendously grateful for the young and energetic for just diving in and putting themselves out there in songs or whatever they are driven to do. In the stories he told, I also heard Dylan saying, "I couldn't do today what I did then." But he sure did what he did with directness and passion and will. As an artist, I found him very inspiring.