Didn’t See That Coming

Weird. “Watchmen” only grossed about $55 million this weekend. That’s far from a flop, but the same director took in over $70 million two years ago around the same month with “300,” and that IP was far less known than this one. I’m particularly baffled at this because the flick seemed to have a lot of appeal across age and gender demographics, so how could the receipts be so modest?

Of course, Warner Bros. official statement is that “expectations were met,” but in an age where opening weekends are king, that is code for, “What the hell just happened?” These guys want their press releases to be full of, “Blown away” and “Exceeded estimates,” and when they’re not, you can bet they have some board meetings. I wouldn’t be too worried about it, honestly: the movie’ word of mouth isn’t fabulous, but it’s good enough to sustain a modest little BO run and then it’ll slaughter DVD and Blu-Ray sales.

I hope against hope that “Watchmen’s” slight disappointment may originate in the movie simply not being good enough. I’ve always longed for a theater-going culture that led the major studios about with a carrot and a stick, punishing shoddiness and rewarding quality, but the obscene profits turned by the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels and “Twilight” seem to counter the idea. Lately, though, this kind of thing has kept happening. Little gems like Liam Neeson’s “Taken” keep destroying the competition and baffling the analysts, and their only fuel is satisfied customers (“Taken,” by the way, is no masterpiece, but it’s better than most of the Jason Statham crap in the same genre).

Anyway, it would make sense: “Watchmen” was sort of good but not wonderful, and it made decent money but not a ton of it, so the relationship seems logical.

But moving right along…

One of the things seeing that movie gave me was an overwhelming reminder of my love for Bob Dylan. I think I first bought a Dylan record when I was in high school, I’m pretty sure it was “Blonde on Blonde,” and I absolutely hated it. It takes a long time to get past his singing voice, particularly on that album, which I think features his weakest vocal performances. It was a textbook example of me trying to like something because I was so regularly informed of its greatness. I’m not sure I ever gave up, per se, but I definitely stuffed the CD in a corner and ignored it for awhile.

I’m not positive what turned me around, it was a slow process, but it probably began when I started writing lyrics of my own. One of the things you quickly realize if you try your hand at songwriting is that clarity is usually your enemy, because it narrows the listener’s experience and makes it corny. Being too oblique is also bad, of course, so the goal is to hit somewhere in the middle: to evoke strongly, but not too specifically, so your audience can bring something of themselves to the music and have a more personal experience. The wonderful thing about this method is that every person will find something different, but each interpretation will be part of a cohesive whole. It’s an amazing thing.

Now where did this style come from? Bob Dylan, more than any other one person. He is the first and, unfortunately, still by the far the best. In my first draft of this entry, I made a list of every emotion or tone that Dylan had mastered, and which song he did it with, but the thing took forever to read so I canned it. Suffice to say that if you’ve felt it, Bob has constructed a masterpiece about it.

Over time, the power of his lyrics and the conviction with which they were sung won me over, creeping into my heart whether I liked it or not. The apocalyptic “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” reminds me of the prophets of the Old Testament, crying out warnings and signs with a breathless fury. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is a delicate, tender lyrical masterpiece, softly weaving threads of bitterness and forgiveness into the standard break-up song. “Masters of War” is probably the angriest song I’ve ever heard, a seething ocean of righteous fury. The enigmatic “Ballad of a Thin Man” evokes a cold, mean narrator mocking a helpless target, deliberately confusing his attempts to understand him and spitting poison in his face. Nothing new can possibly be said about “Like A Rolling Stone.”

And then there’s Dylan the man, maybe the hardest part of this whole equation. It would be too simple to call him a “jerk,” but he’s earned the title many times. He’s distant, cold, off-putting, impossible to pin down, constantly angering the people who thought they knew him. Roger Ebert once wrote that the problem is his music: the stuff is good at capturing how we feel, we logically insist that the man who made it must also do the same. He just doesn’t. Bob Dylan may be one of the most lost human beings in existence, the same incredible sensitivity that lifts his music into greatness also casts him on the waves of time, searching for an identity. Googling pictures of Bob Dylan produces a myriad of outfits and hair-dos, none of which look like they could possibly belong to the same man.

As an artist, I think I’m better equipped to understand this than most. Creating worthwhile art requires the nurturing of a personality that is hostile to well-adjusted living. You have to feel the tiniest tremors within yourself and others, and opening yourself up like that makes you unstable. The defining struggle of my life has been to have my cake and eat it too, to walk on both sides of the fence, and it’s only remotely possible because of the grace of God. Watching Bob careen wildly through his existence, I know exactly what it feels like, because some part of me is doing it with him.