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A couple excerpts from Dylan's Philosophy Of Modern Song are up at the NY Times (here, or if that doesn't work, here).
Reading the introduction by Ben Sisario I was thinking, "He [Dylan] is reimagining 'Strangers In The Night' as the sudden eyeball connection between Miss Lonely and The Mystery Tramp/Napoleon In Rags." But when I read the actual excerpt, that's not it. Napoleon and Miss Lonely had been destabilized and brought down and that's what made connection between them possible. But in Dylan's "Strangers" it's the glance itself that's destabilizing, a sudden connection that rearranges everything.
In the actual Sinatra song it's the lovers who are forever, "Lovers at first sight, in love forever," while in Dylan's retelling it's the glance that lives forever. This is like sudden surrealism, like Buñuel, a lightning bolt – except I understand fuck-all about surrealism and Buñuel, didn't think I liked Buñuel, dour humor, sourpuss, having seen two or three of his movies but then saw his Wuthering Heights at the Public Theater and thought I got it, the lightning darts – but I was afraid to follow up, 40 years past.
Also thinking of the sad electric glance in David Johansen's "Frenchette": "I get all the love I need in a luncheonette, in just one glance, so let's just dance." But that's a different glance, a half-sustaining glance, not a destabilizing Dylan "Strangers" glance like little spear holes in the outer shell of the universe.
Frank Sinatra "Strangers In The Night"
SPOILER This is the last scene so don't watch it SPOILER Luis Buñuel Abismos de pasión SPOILER
Reading the introduction by Ben Sisario I was thinking, "He [Dylan] is reimagining 'Strangers In The Night' as the sudden eyeball connection between Miss Lonely and The Mystery Tramp/Napoleon In Rags." But when I read the actual excerpt, that's not it. Napoleon and Miss Lonely had been destabilized and brought down and that's what made connection between them possible. But in Dylan's "Strangers" it's the glance itself that's destabilizing, a sudden connection that rearranges everything.
In the actual Sinatra song it's the lovers who are forever, "Lovers at first sight, in love forever," while in Dylan's retelling it's the glance that lives forever. This is like sudden surrealism, like Buñuel, a lightning bolt – except I understand fuck-all about surrealism and Buñuel, didn't think I liked Buñuel, dour humor, sourpuss, having seen two or three of his movies but then saw his Wuthering Heights at the Public Theater and thought I got it, the lightning darts – but I was afraid to follow up, 40 years past.
Also thinking of the sad electric glance in David Johansen's "Frenchette": "I get all the love I need in a luncheonette, in just one glance, so let's just dance." But that's a different glance, a half-sustaining glance, not a destabilizing Dylan "Strangers" glance like little spear holes in the outer shell of the universe.
Frank Sinatra "Strangers In The Night"
SPOILER This is the last scene so don't watch it SPOILER Luis Buñuel Abismos de pasión SPOILER
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