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a14 people & arts
Friday 30 OctOber 2020
Blowin' in the wind: Lost interviews hold new Dylan insights

By WILLIAM J. KOLE Robert Zimmerman in Du-
Associated Press luth, Minnesota. And his
For nearly half a century, rambling chats with Glov-
they were blowin' in the er help explain the name
wind: lost interviews that change.
contained surprising new A March 22, 1971, con-
insights about celebrat- versation began with
ed singer-songwriter Bob Dylan joking: "I mean it
Dylan. wouldn't've worked if I'd
Transcripts of the 1971 inter- changed the name to Bob
views with the late Ameri- Levy. Or Bob Neuwirth. Or
can blues artist Tony Glov- Bob Doughnut."
er — and letters the two But in handwritten addi-
friends exchanged — have tions, the tone became
surfaced at a Boston auc- more serious as Dylan dis-
tion house. They reveal that cussed his Jewish identity.
Dylan had anti-Semitism on "A lot of people are under
his mind when he changed the impression that Jews
his name and wrote "Lay are just money lenders and
Lady Lay" for singer and ac- merchants. A lot of people
tress Barbra Streisand. think that all Jews are like
Some of the 37 typed pag- that. Well they used to be
es contain handwritten Musician Bob Dylan performs with The Band at the Forum in Los Angeles on Feb. 15, 1974. cause that's all that was
Associated Press
notes in Dylan's own scrawl, open to them. That's all
said R.R. Auction, which passages he evidently scene. Glover's widow, won the Nobel prize for they were allowed to do,"
is selling Glover's trove of didn't like. Cynthia Nadler, put the literature in 2016 after giv- he wrote.
Dylan archives. Dylan, 79, was close friends documents up for auction, ing the world "Blowin' in In the interviews, Dylan also
"My work is a moving thing," with Glover, who died last with online bidding to start the Wind," "Like a Rolling recalled when he famously
Dylan scribbled in one spot. year. The two men broke Nov. 12 and run through Stone," "The Times They Are "went electric" at the 1965
Elsewhere, he used a blue into music on the same Nov. 19. a-Changin'" and other an- Newport Folk Festival in
marker to strike through Minneapolis coffeehouse The reclusive Dylan, who thems of the '60s, was born Rhode Island, where folk
purists in the crowd booed
him. "Yeah, it was a strange
Review: In 'His House,' nightmares from the migrant crisis night," he said.
There's also a letter Dylan
penned in February 1962, a
By JAKE COYLE inside their new home, they month before he released
AP Film Writer start hearing things inside his debut album, in which
In Remi Weekes' "His House," the walls. Damp wall paper he quoted folk legend
Bol (Sopé Dìrísù) and Rial peels back to reveal black Woody Guthrie: "Some-
(Wunmi Mosaku) have fled holes with visions of horror times I feel like a piece of
war in South Sudan only to within. Rial believes a witch dirt walkin.'"
find new horrors lurking in has followed them to Su- After visiting Guthrie in May
English shadows. dan. Like Harry Caul in "The of that year, Dylan penned
In the film's opening mo- Conversation," Bol begins these lyrics, which have
ments, they're brought to punch holes in the walls never been made public:
before a detention cen- and rip up the floor boards, "My eyes are cracked I
ter board who announce trying to find the source of think I been framed / I can't
their release. But it's quali- their terror. They're trapped seem to remember the
fied. "This is bail," they're in a haunted house they sound of my name / What
told. "You're being released can't leave, fearful they'll did he teach you I heard
on bail as asylum seekers. be judged poor adapters This image released by Netflix shows Wunmi Mosaku as Rial someone shout / Did he
You're not citizens. Not yet." to British life and sent back Majur, left, and Sope Dìrísù as Bol Majur in a scene from "His teach you to wheel & wind
A case worker (a very good to Sudan. House." yourself out / Did he teach
Matt Smith, of "The Crown") In Weekes' directorial de- Associated Press you to reveal, respect, and
brings them to their bug- but, premiering Friday on repent the blues / No Jack
ridden, rat-infested new Netflix, everything is creepy they are. But the couple's drowning in production de- he taught me how to sleep
home, a pale-blue con- and strange. To Bol and haunting, we steadily gath- sign, imprisoning its char- in my shoes."q
crete tenement with plen- Rial, the world around er, originates not from their acters in genre torments
ty of room but crawling in them is disorienting. Week- alien environment but from when it could be explor- Solution Sudoku
sinister, dilapidated grime. es films even their daytime their traumas of home. ing Rial and Bol's grief, pain
There are plenty of house errands with horror-movie Their sleeping dreams and and guilt through more ju-
rules. They have to stay; dread, accompanied by waking nightmares are dicious plunges into surre-
they can't have friends a heavy-handed score. filled with the images of alism. But by bringing the
over; even board games The cold, dingy England people crammed onto a migrant crisis into a horror-
are a no-no. "Make it easy they find themselves in — truck, bodies strewn on the film realm, "His House" has
for people," the case work- with mean, ghostly faces streets, a harried escape forcefully captured the
er cautions. "Be one of the in windows and bewilder- by sea, death all around. traumas of the refugee ex-
good ones." ing Peter Crouch songs at Weekes has the horror el- perience. The grounded
They very much intend to. the pub — might as well be ements down pat but risks performances and pained
"We're not going back," Bol another planet. They're not submerging his film in them. faces of Dìrísù and Mosaku
says more than once. But even sure exactly where "His House" can feel like it's offer no easy answers. q Puzzle on Page 13