Edward Norton on the Brilliant Iconoclasm of Bob Dylan

The flip is like Dylan, who I still find myself, like when you watch the new Scorsese, have you seen that thing, Rolling Thunder? It's really worth watching that. Or the original Scorsese, you talked about him one No Direction home, like, here's this guy, he's like in his early 20s and they're coming at him with all this like voice regeneration, all this stuff and he's like, that's nothing I can relate to, man. And he's going, like I can't help wondering if Lenny Bruce loved Dylan. I don't know that, but I would think that Lenny Bruce was tuned in to Dylan because Dylan's thing was like, don't ask me what it means, man. I wrote it, I don't know what it means. What do you think it means? He was just constantly going buzz off, man. I'm not picking it apart for you. I'm not going to pick it apart for you. I'm not going to like buy into this stuff you're putting at me. And how did he, he was 20, 21 years old. Like who resists people falling all over them to call them great when they're that age, nobody. Nobody has that kind of like sensibility to go, everything you're bringing at me is going to be bad for me. And it's like, if you watch those interviews with him when he's that age, it's pretty astonishing because to your point, like you're like a thoughtful act, I look at him and I'm like, nobody has that discipline at that age. Yes, amazing how uniquely qualified he was for that position at that point in time and that very strange tumultuous time in history as well. And not only that, right at the moment that like Joni Baez brings him out on the stage at the Newport Folk Festival and basically goes, this is the prince, this is, I anoint you, he's the one, he's Neo, he is the one. And the next year, he doesn't even take one year to go, to go, let me just lean into your love. The next year he comes with an electric guitar and plugs it in at the Newport Folk Festival and people start screaming in agony like going, what are you doing? Like you're Bob Dylan, you're the king of folk, you can't plug in a guitar. And people are like running to try to cut his chords with an ax in this thing. Like that's how much of a betrayal and he's like, there's people yelling traitor at him and he's going, I don't believe you. You know, I think you're a liar like and he's turning around to Robbie Robertson and going play it loud. I mean, the guy is so punk rock. Wow. He's so totally punk rock. He was as punk rock as anybody ever. I think he probably had to be just to resist what they were trying to box him into. Yeah, and by, but there's never been anybody who was more like, oh, you like what I'm doing? I'm gone. I'm over here. Like enjoy. You're going to not like it because you like what I just did. Now where I'm going, you're going to be discombobulated and upset. And eventually you're going to catch up and then when you catch up, I'm going to move on to something else. Like it's really, it really is amazing. It's amazing because how many people do you know in any of the things we all do who get a taste of a thing and don't like lean into it for a while, right? Like who don't kind of go, well, this feels good. You know, maybe I'll just hang out right here. And...