The factual errors stood out like New York skyscrapers. And worse, far worse, was the continuation of this sentimental, ultimately soggy romantic vision of the tortured poet whose grip on existence solely revolves around his ability to pluck poems from the life-defying chaos. Dylan himself didn't even know when he was lying so it's up to those writing about him now to sort the truth from his fiction. He said he couldn't eat, sleep, f*** or drink but in this managed to do at least two of them rather well considering and if you substitute unconsciousness for sleep then three (breathe would have been a better addition). He still managed to complete Under Milk Wood, had Stravinsky waiting for a libretto, was roasting hostesses among others (I'm unfamiliar with the sources for the nameless blow-job girl), and was necking booze like it was coming into fashion. Eighteen straight(double)whiskies was merely his proved last lie and it's sad enough to perpetuate that. But all this was nothing to compare to the sight of his spirit lifting from his corporeal self on his hospital bed on his death (not while unromantically being given a bed bath which would have been the truth) and then this phantom phantom rising to smile as it watched its younger self gambolling through the child high hay around pretend Fern Hill. It was a scene that would have been perfect in a Powell and Pressburger film of the 1940's but is laughable now. Even the 'wild' Dr Feltenstein was more Dr Finlay - perhaps because the haze of litigation is the primary pollutant of the New York City air these days. Brinnin was portrayed as a devoted friend with a crush on the poet rather than a purveyor of the very myth this film perpetuates. There was no need for Dylan to die in New York and with better medical treatment and guardianship he wouldn't have done. It raises the question of why make a film in the centenary year of the poet's birth that concentrates so much on the poet's death. The answer must be because it is more dramatic and commercial. This was the same motivation for Brinnin's 'Dylan Thomas in America', which was full of inaccuracies, the reasons for many of those being rather dubious. It is this account on which the film seems largely based when something closer to the truth is far easier to come by these days. Beautifully acted and filmed but...
Review of A Poet in New York
